Music I Like Like Nachos

Growing up in Arizona, nachos was a food group. Once I hit a certain age, calories became a thing, and nachos became a forbidden pleasure. When I really want to splurge, I might eat cheesecake, but it’s just as likely that I’ll eat nachos. I’m not really talking about the stale discs and hot processed cheese product you get at movie theaters and race tracks, although that has its place too. Real nachos always have certain ingredients – corn chips, black beans, chopped tomatoes, melted cheese, guacamole. Other ingredients are optional – ground beef, black olives, sour cream. But using the same basic ingredients, every plate of nachos is different and every plate of nachos is delicious.

The music I like is like that, too. Chugging riffs, extreme vocals, blast beats. Sometimes there’s contrasting vocals, atmospheric melodies, or additional instruments like keyboards or classical strings. The ingredients are the same, but every album is different and delicious. Here is some music I like like nachos.

Iapetus

On The Body Cosmic, Iapetus has all the base ingredients and sometimes adds contrasting vocals, classical guitars, and big atmosphere. Bonus: they also do that Be’lakor guitar thing I love.

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Eternal Storm

The Spaniards in Eternal Storm have crafted a perfect balance among extreme, melodic, and atmospheric elements. Like the best nachos, there are a lot of elements in Come the Tide, but everything blends together to make a single whole that is in no way fragmented. Plus that album artwork is gorgeous. This is what melodeath should be.

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Sons of a Wanted Man

When I started this post, I thought it would be a roundup of death metal bands that didn’t actually sound the same, but for all of which the same cliched music writer descriptors applied. But then I stumbled on Sons of a Wanted Man. Their album Kenoma is not death metal nachos. It’s mostly made up of standard black metal ingredients. But every now and then some elements of death metal and even melody pop up. To strain a metaphor, it’s like getting occasional bites of corn chip or melted cheese. And it makes all the difference between forgettable and irresistible.

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Nihilism

There are about a half dozen bands called Nihilism on Bandcamp, but I’m talking about the one from France that released an album called Apocalyptic Fate late in 2019. I don’t remember where I read about them, but according to my notes, that source described them as technical death metal. To me, as someone with more appreciation and understand of the effect of music than the technique used to create it, tech death is often something to withstand rather than enjoy. But this pulls me in with vocals that are right in my zone and some sections of very Be’lakor-like guitar – some of my favorite death metal ingredients.

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Oath of Damnation

Blackened death from Australia. Do I actually need to say more? Fury and Malevolence by Oath of Damnation is filthy good fun.

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Kvaen

Black metal can be catchy. Who knew? Kvaen piles pagan and speed metal onto The Funeral Pyre like the sour cream and guacamole on a perfect plate of nachos.

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