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Recently I got called a nerd for mentioning in casual conversation that I'd been playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Well kids, if that makes me a nerd, prepare to dub me a nerd queen today because the latest episode of the, at times questionable, Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power just went and closed out its latest episode with a spicy Meshuggah feature.
The Soundcheck doesn't really dabble in a heap of popular culture discourse outside of music-centric stuff, so I will spare a giant unpacking of my thoughts on what I think about the TV series itself. But in summary: visually, the show is a feast, as it absolutely should be with a predicted budget to surpass $1 billion across its entire run; and we're only in season 2 currently. Script-wise, there are times where the show sounds like it's fallen prey to some tedious AI generated hoo-ha, and there is a hell of a lot of artistic license having to be taken with the J.R.R. Tolkien lore, largely due to the fact that Amazon don't actually currently have the rights to The Silmarillion (the text where much of this age/storyline is taking place), and instead is legally having to fill in the gaps purely from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
As a literature tragic, I've been oddly curious about the series despite the fluctuating weird vibes in its delivery, and have persevered absentmindedly with it playing in the background during this new season, and glancing up from time to time to see some Aussies strut their stuff throughout Middle Earth (I once accidentally and briefly stood next to Charlie Vickers aka Sauron on a film set on the Northern Beaches. Zero rings).
Yesterday, I flicked on episode 7, the cheerily titled Doomed To Die, and I don't know if it's the fact that I know the season is coming to an end next week or if it actually got good - but I found myself genuinely enjoying things way more than usual, including the closing shot when <redacted to avoid spoilers> picked up Galadriel's coveted shiny elf ring - and also what immediately followed in the closing credits.
Series composer Bear McCreary has kept the Rings of Power score feeling largely like a standalone entity to Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit films (also due to legal reasons), while aiming to give the show an underlying thread from Howard Shore's sweeping cinematic soundtrack that previously brought Middle Earth to life on the silver screen. In the end, Shore penned the show's main title theme, and McCreary took up the task of fleshing the rest out, continuing his diverse work that has set the tone for the likes of The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, God Of War and many more.
The episode Doomed To Die showcased the behemoth hill-troll Damrod joining in one of the biggest battles to date in the series. The body count jumps and shit genuinely gets metal as this seemingly unstoppable force storms the battlefield set to some levelled-up background music; and it was in fact Meshuggah's own Jens Kidman joining forces with McCready to conjure the troll's official theme song. As the end credits rolled, instead of being greeted with the eerie and usually sombre traditional McCreary score, instead the symponic death metal Damrod theme returned in full flight, this time with some blistering and familiar vocals as Kidman lets rip in his own sonic rampage along with drummer Gene Hoglan.
Earlier this month, Kidman discussed joining the The Lord of the Rings family with Consequence, an announcement I very much slept on at the time so it was a pretty fun surprise to suddenly hear some Meshuggah intertwined with a high fantasy setting.
"Since this was a totally new experience for me, I didn’t really know exactly what they expected from me. I pretty much just decided early to do what I do best and ride the vibe this project gave me. My approach was to just be myself and try to get that ferocious and brutal urgency to come through and glue together with what this story is telling you right at that moment you’re watching it." - Jans Kidman, via Consequence
But of course, Meshuggah are by no means the first band to ever get swept up in the Tolkien-verse, with Led Zeppelin famously nodding to the legendary writer's works on Ramble On and Misty Mountain Hop amongst many other tracks, Black Sabbath's The Wizard has been alleged to be based on Gandalf, (depending who you ask), and Blind Guardian are so heavily inspired by Tolkien that there has been talk they had been in negotiations to add to the LOTR film series soundtrack. And heck, even Saruman himself, Christopher Lee, worked on some heavy metal releases alongside being a stone cold acting badass in his day, including Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010.
Long story short: absentmindedly watching a TV show on a lazy afternoon and suddenly hearing Jens Kidman's voice appear unexpectedly is awesome. And let us not forget how metal a lot of these classic fantasy novels truly are, it's about time we get a chance to shine more of this genre's talents in the mainstream.
BY TIANA SPETER
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