A Certain Movie Provides an Excuse to Mention King Gizz

Plus a TTRPG project inspired by a metal band

I’m still recovering from the OGL kerfuffle, but it would be journalistic malfeasance on my part to not mention that Tame Impala recently released a song called "Wings of Time" for the upcoming D&D movie. After 3 minutes of googling Australian psychedelic bands I see that Tame Impala has shared band members with Pond, who have played with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard at Gizzfest, which means I just got to mention the amazing King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, so I now feel back to full HP.

Cover of the Murder of the Universe Album by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Storytellers Forge is crowdfunding The Black Ballad, a “masterful blending of story and music.” It’s a campaign and setting inspired by an album by DiaMorte. I was not familiar with the band, so I checked out the video for their song "Ashes and Sorrow", which I found to be an enjoyable “beauty and the beast” style symphonic metal song somewhat reminiscent of Epica. The Black Ballad project looks very ambitious, and the crowdfunding campaign seems to be going very well with several stretch goals already unlocked.

After listening to the DiaMorte song, I was reminded that some rockers of my vintage struggle with death metal style vocals. I had a similar issue until I heard Into Eternity’s album Buried in Oblivion 19 years ago. That unlocked my ear to the virtues of extreme vocals and opened the way for many other amazing bands to enter my musical life. Many thanks to my friend Bob Beach from the band Hex for introducing Into Eternity to me!