Best Metal Videos of All Time
Number 5: Flesh and Blood—DGM
5: Flesh and Blood—DGM (Italy) Total Score = 10.5
[GO BACK TO NUMBER 6]
Scoring rationale: music = 8.5 + 1 point for a consistent story + 1 point for production values = 10.5 points.
Do these guys hate each other or something? They’re at least ten metres apart. Remember that this video was shot during the COVID pandemic. Metal—especially the front rows during a live gig—isn’t normally known for its distancing, but DGM figured that if we must, we might as well do it right. Welcome to metal distancing!
But. . .more than ten metres! All the more reason to play louder. Win-win!
There seems to be a whole story to the video. Which is excellenty foreshadowed. [Spoiler alert:] The main character gets a postal message saying he’s in the final stage of long cancer. This very message is only showed at the end of the video, as the reveal1, yet it is foreshadowed2 all along the video, to wit:
The main character drowns the bad news in alcohol as he reads it;
He decides to fulfill his last bucket list wish as he drives towards the mountains;
Yet before he reaches his destiny, his car breaks down (a reflection of what is about to happen to him);
Yet he carries on, grabbing his rucksack as he walks into the beautiful mountainscape;
Seeing beautiful waterfalls, cloudscapes, a big crater3, as he walks through further volcanically active mountainscapes;
He greatly enjoys it, while realising this might be the last time, as he starts coughing up blood;
And he dies at a river, smoking his last cigarette—the reason of his cancer—as the video shows the messages—lung cancer stage IV;
It looks great. The second character in the video is the mesmerising landscape. Where was this filmed? I don’t know4, even if I have a vague clue.
Plenty of flashy musicianship in the song. Was the band always like this? DGM is one of these bands that change musicians, and in their case so often that none of the original members are still in it. Yet, the music they make has proven remarkably consistent.
So the opposite of number 6? You mean that at Code Orange, the band members remain mostly the same5 while the music constantly evolves, while at DGM the music remains mostly the same as the musicians constantly change? Not really, as the current line-up has been together since 2008.
Don’t say: I thought Lacuna Coil was the only somewhat heavy band in Italy6;
Do say: Next time, make a video of visiting Italy for pleasure7, not as a bucket list.
Classic storytelling;
A sign of good storytelling;
Which, I suspect, is the Etna volcano crater in Sicily;
If anybody knows, please tell so in the comments!
Only Mike Portnoy’s son Max joined the band as a drummer on their latest album;
Apart from DGM, there’s also UFOmammut, Måneskin (Eurovision winners) and Rhapsody of Fire, to name but a few;
Which I do regularly;