Heavy metal loves death but will never die. Thus, it’s fitting that following a 10-year absence, Metalocalypse—Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha’s Adult Swim animated series about Earth’s most popular and powerful band, death metal titans Dethklok—has risen from the cancellation grave to finally complete its tale with Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar.
An R-rated feature film (out Aug. 22 on VOD and Blu-Ray) that resolves the cliffhanger left by 2013’s operatic special Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem (which itself came on the heels of the show’s fourth and final small-screen season), it’s a demonically demented Satanic fantasia of drugs, sex, gore, booze, violence, and romance, and shredding riffs, dueling solos, blast beat drums, and growling vocals. Prepare to bang your head and raise your horns to what is surely the most epically metal release of 2023—and a satisfying conclusion to a gonzo parody par excellence.
Metalocalypse the fictional cartoon has spawned four real-world albums and multiple tours by Small (under the name Dethklok, whose LP Dethklok IV premieres alongside the film), and its satiric take on heavy metal has resulted in cameos from well-known actors (Jon Hamm, Jack Black, Werner Herzog, Marc Maron) as well as music luminaries (James Hetfield, Dave Grohl, Slash).
It tells the story of Dethklok, a death metal outfit comprised of burly lead singer Nathan Explosion (Small), lead guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf (Small), rhythm guitarist Toki Wartooth (Blacha), bassist William Murderface (Blacha), and drummer Pickles (Small)—all of whom have been fashioned as farcical metal stereotypes who love nothing more than pummeling songs, extreme partying and sex, and living like veritable kings. In this loopy altera-reality, Dethklok is bigger than everything, so adored by the public that their success fuels the economy, and so influential that they can do whatever they want, and in whatever outrageous fashion.
This is the basic premise for legitimately insane action cast in a Heavy Metal mold, all pentagrams, prophesies, portals, and other preposterous nonsense—much of it complicated by a nefarious cabal known as the Tribunal (led by a villain named Salacia) who want to bring about the “Metalocalypse” and, concurrently, prevent Dethklok from stymieing their plans.
Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar picks up where The Doomstar Requiem ended, with the group having rescued a kidnapped Toki and producer Abigail from the clutches of former bandmate Magnus Hammersmith (Small) and sworn enemy Metal Masked Assassin (Cannibal Corpse frontman George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher), whom they apparently vanquished. All is not well with Dethklok, however, since their fans now clamor for a new album and tour, and yet Nathan is wracked by PTSD that has caused him—in what may be the most stunning twist in the series’ history—to lose his confidence.
This is trouble for Dethklok and, also, for civilization, although just as pressing is a sinister plot being carried out by the Masked Metal Assassin and Salacia (Mark Hamill), aka “The Half-Man,” whom his ex-Tribunal cohort General Crozier (Victor Brandt) calls “a beast, not of this Earth.” Crozier has been under these supernatural baddies’ spell, and so too is
Murderface—something hinted at by The Doomstar Requiem’s closing scene, in which the bassist became infected by an unknown force. The evil duo’s scheme is threefold: to instigate the Metalocalypse and to both destroy the Army of the Doomstar (an enigmatic fighting battalion named after an enormous burning star in the sky) and to stop Nathan from writing “The Song of Salvation,” a legendary tune destined to save humanity. I know this makes little sense in writing and it’s not particularly straightforward in practice either, but Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar isn’t about narrative lucidity so much as blistering chaos and madness. In that regard, the proceedings ably deliver.
Nathan is so miserable that he turns his back on his devoted acolytes, and he’s thrown into further depression by the press-conference appearance of Dr. Rockzo (Small), a rock ’n’ roll clown who adores cocaine and performs a flamboyant number about visiting a clown heaven in which blow flows freely into God’s giant bozo nostril. That’s not, it must be said, the last bit of hallucinatory craziness dispensed by Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar.
To squash Nathan’s crippling self-doubt and to pen the song that will halt planetary destruction, Dethklok—on the advice of their manager-turned-Church of the Black Klok leader Charles Foster Offdensen (Small)—visit a sanctuary run by engineer Knubbler (Small). This does not go as planned, alas, and before it’s all over, Nathan has a drugged-out chat with the “Whale Prophet” and then the End Times arrive, thereby necessitating heroics involving a globe-spanning PA system and a magical fight between the band and their colossal adversary.
Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar hews closely to its predecessors’ dim-bulb humor and style, all while amplifying things to delirious cinematic heights. Francis Ford Coppola, Todd McFarlane, and John Carpenter are some of the numerous inspirations for Small’s film, whose grand aesthetics are paralleled by a score of operatic orchestral arrangements and, of course, face-melting metal thrashers.
Titmouse’s animation takes the show’s visual designs and kicks them up several notches, and the cast is stacked with big names that include Hamm, Malcolm McDowell, King Diamond, Kirk Hammett, Scott Ian, and Amy Lee. The focus, however, is on Small and Blacha’s protagonists, whose over-the-top antics veer from squabbling like man-children to making ridiculous jokes about the music community they inhabit, as when Nathan admits that there’s no meal better fit for a death metal vocalist than chocolate milk and Cool Ranch Doritos.
Through these trials and tribulations, Dethklok learns in Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar that their power comes not only from their unparalleled artistic gifts but also from their fans—a symbiotic relationship that, it turns out, goes both ways. Couple that with a portrait of bands as dysfunctional families that only truly work when complete, and what you have is a majestically mythological and amusingly absurd encapsulation of tried-and-true rock ’n’ roll truths.
It may be the weirdest and wildest music series of all-time, yet at its fire-and-brimstone core, Small and Blacha’s Metalocalypse saga is a sincere ode to the thrilling extremism of metal and a celebration of the idea that music is life—and, when loud and ferocious enough, capable of saving the world.
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