Giant Monsters! Great Terror! Hell! This Is the Godzilla Minute!
Run for your lives, it’s Godzilla!
Actually, don’t run. Stay. Pull up a seat and order a latte even, cuz we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. A little moth told me that you’re as big of a loserweiner as much of a Godzilla fanatic as I am, so boy howdy do I have some good news for you. Like the three-headed Ghidorah, I’m going to shoot lightning beams of info at you from my three gaping monster maws! Prepare yourself!
Music
Sunday night I was sifting through Bandcamp looking for Godzilla-related bands to cover like I do every Sunday night. You guys were such colossal fans of our last Kaiju adventure that I wanted to be sure to bring you some skreeeeeoooooonky goodies again! Thankfully, my quest to unlock the ancient secrets at the shrine of King Caesar were successful, and I have unearthed two excellent, albeit not very metal bands for you to love and embrace with childlike wonder.
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First up is Bovachevo with their instrumental mathcore album Godzilla. Picture a punkier Slint or a vocal-less The Jesus Lizard, and you’re on the right track. Godzilla is 7 tracks of chaotic, rhythmic rock that sounds like Biollante smashing a bunch of buildings together with her numerous vine appendages, laying waste to the countryside. It’s fast; it’s slow. It’s sloppy and tight. It’s as predictable as Godzilla’s mood, and I dig it. Rampage your way over to Bandcamp and download it for FREE! Also, give the boys in Bovachevo a stab on Facebook while you’re at it.
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Next up is the self-proclaimed experimental surf rockers Godzilla Black. I only noticed a few tracks where that title was apt, but what I did find a was a whole lot of weird. You guys know how much I love weird. The Great Terror is like some horrible, radiation-spawned nightmare amalgam of King Kong percussion, acid trip vocals, and strikingly daring pop sensibilities. I think the Futurians must have traveled back in time to fuse Tweak Bird, The Mars Volta, and Humanfly together into an abominable, indomitable golden dragon of shrieking fury and disarming fervor. If you’re like me and down with inexplicable time-traveling theories, stab this Bandcamp link and mosey on over to Facebook to toss the guys a like.
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Lastly, and just in case you never checked it out, I wanted to share with you the excellent title track from last year’s Godzilla motion picture, written by one Mr. Alexandre Desplat. I recently compared something we covered here in the Toilet to this soundtrack, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was, nor am I going to slog through my voluminous disqus history to find out. Oh well. Get prehistoric with this track and let me know if you remember what the hell I’m referencing in the comments.
Film
Godzilla fans should be frothing at the mouth with the news we’ve received over the last few months. Not only did Legendary, the American company currently wrangling Big G, announce that a sequel to Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla is definitely going to be stomping the yard in 2018, but it might also feature three more Toho fan-favorite Kaiju, namely, Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. I’m a fan of the new Kaiju (the M.U.T.O.s) Legendary created to throw down with the King of the Monsters for the 2014 film, but it will be neat to see how the American company re-imagines those three classic critters. You can get more details on that film by stabbing here!
However, Godzilla purists may be even more excited by the fact that Toho, Godzilla’s parent company and trademark holders across the Pacific, have announced that they plan on releasing another Godzilla film in 2016, ostensibly as a stop-gap to tide fans over in 2018 (but likely moreso to cash in on that sweet American monster movie hype cash). This will be Toho’s first Godzilla film since 2004’s lukewarm Godzilla: Final Wars. For those unfamiliar with Toho Kaiju films, expect a lot less CGI and a lot more rubber suits. I can’t wait.
Literature
Lastly, but certainly not leastly, IDW comics announced late last week that they will be unleashing a new Godzilla mini-series of comics called Godzilla in Hell. yes, you read that correctly. Godzilla is going to hell. And maybe punching the Prince of Darkness in his smug face. It will probably be as ridiculous as it sounds, but IDW has a great track record with Godzilla comics, coming off the back of the excellent (for Godzilla fans) Godzilla: Rulers of Earth series and tapping some extremely talented writers and artists. You can get more details about who’s involved over at Dread Central. I’m going to leave you with a teaser image of the mini-series because it is the epitome of metal.
So, does any of this excite you? Are you a big kaiju boy or a little kaiju boy? Let me know how I’m never getting laid ever in the comments below.
