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It used to be easy. If you wanted hard music you started at rock and roll and moved to hard rock and then heavy metal. OK, maybe it wasn't ever that
easy. But the emergence and growth of alternative and hardcore has led some to say that metal (and even rock) is dead. This publication had to change its name from Heaven's Metal to be able to keep up with the diversity of hard music. But metal is far from dead.
Perhaps metal is no longer at its strongest in America, but it is not dead. One need look no further than Norway's Extol to see that. "We do a lot of headbanging," Christer Espevoll smiles.
"All the Americans cut their hair and started running around in circles hitting each other (read: moshing), so we love to tour the USA doing circles with our hair." While Extol does have one of the most
energetic, head-bangingest shows around, that alone doesn't make them a metal band. So we turn to the most important and remarkable aspect of this neo-metal band, its music. Extol has an undying
passion for melody, a definite hallmark of metal. "We focus a lot on melody," explains Christer, "because in our opinion, it's almost impossible to make a really good song without a good melody. I mean, you
can play 'chuggah, chuggah' all the way through a CD, but it's gonna get boring in the long run. We believe that combining rhythm and melody is the best way to make good music." Listening to
Undeceived, the band's latest album, one can't help but stare at the stereo through one's whipping hair and mutter "that is beautiful." With two guitars, two vocalists, five composers, and a myriad of
other musical contributions and influences, it isn't hard to see why Extol has such a rich and diverse sound. It is heavy, dark, and grinding, but the melody dominates.
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