Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni – Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni (2012)

by William Pilgrim on April 18, 2015

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To make meaningful commentary on a band like Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni, or any other band walking the old death metal tightrope for that matter, one has to hear them in context with the specific niche in time that their sound occupies. Execute a bit of nifty time-travel in the mind and place the band concerned in the august company that it aspires to keep. Observe if it compares favourably with at least the spirit of the originals in terms of aspects like general coherency in songwriting, perpetual will to forward motion, and, above all else, that ineffable, visceral reaction that only the very best are capable of evoking. Originality in this cloistered paradigm is a disingenuous word; what the avid listener hopes for is a transmission of the same vitality that informed the heyday of this music.

Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni posits no claim to innovation but that is no crime in itself. Incantation, the bread n’ butter of modern death metal, is frequently referenced in the use of flowing tremolo lines plucked from the chromatic scale. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the use of atonality in death metal – it indeed comprises much of the bedrock of the genre – it also becomes something of a cop-out in the hands of lazy bands that lack the creativity required to compose tastefully and in accordance with tradition. Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni aren’t an especially lazy band and are perfectly capable of constructing riffs according to harmonic conventions as heard in the more black metal-inspired sections of this album.

Where Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni falls hard is in arrangement. Songs rarely build up to any kind of crescendo, even compromising whatever momentum may have been built up initially. While any topography consists of peaks and troughs, there appears to be no aesthetic meaning to Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni‘s contours. Riffs rise and fall like waves on the ocean but without any of nature’s geometry, and what results is an album that touts itself as Satanic death metal but feels curiously void of life’s irrepressible energy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6livJb29bs

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The Babadook (2014)

by Brett Stevens on April 17, 2015

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Old school horror books often focused on plotlines where an inner psychological trauma became manifested in a physical evil. Metaphorically, this plot generates a lot of appeal because it mimics the worst of the human condition: neurotic and blinded to our own inner corruption, we humans have a tendency to act out our psychological dysfunction on the world. The horror story takes this only one step further by mythologizing it, and putting abstract dysfunction into a visual form so we can recognize it, unlike when it remains within us.

The Babadook takes on this plot family — comparable to riff archetype in metal — and makes of it a movie that is one-half tedium and one-half incoherence. It holds up the metaphor reasonably well, but loses sight of its purpose early on, and like many movies with female directors, concentrates on “atmosphere” to the point of making the audience lose sympathy for the characters. Although it brings itself full circle without pandering to the easy options for plot conclusion, such as character insanity or dream, its failure to make sense of the challenge to the main character, Amelia, renders the storyline into gibberish at the end.

The setup is simple: Amelia has a son, Samuel, who was born on the day her husband died. The husband, Oskar, was killed in a car crash on a rainy night as he drove Amelia to the hospital to birth Samuel. Seven years later, she still becomes morbid and withdrawn as the day that Samuel was born approaches. The child, on the other hand, never has a guilt-free birthday party. Working the standard pointless modern job, and struggling with her own inability to snap out of her reverie, Amelia struggles with the more profound problem of Samuel, who acts like a child with severe emotional problems. As the movie goes on, both Amelia and Samuel essentially retreat or are exiled from the world as their increasingly bizarre and dangerous behavior threatens others.

During the midst of this, Samuel finds a pop-up book that tells the story of a creature called the Babadook. The book is written in annoying sing-song rhyme, but it makes its point that is essential to the metaphor of the story: the more you deny the presence of the Babadook, the more he takes over you. The obvious analogy to grief itself, and the inability to escape or unwillingness to give up prolonged mourning, shows us the weakness in Amelia that allows evil to enter… or escape. In some of the most tired plot devices in horror, the book keeps re-appearing after being destroyed or hidden, adding new lines to the rhyme as life falls apart for Amelia and Samuel.

Like many other modern films, The Babadook features characters who are chronically sleep-deprived. This bit of realism resonates with audiences, so many of the newer generation of psychological horror films adopt it. Here it is worn to death and repeated to the point of tedium during the first half of the film. At the midpoint of the film, everyone changes roles. Samuel, the useless and destructive child, suddenly becomes responsible. Amelia suddenly spaces out and becomes useless. Unfortunately for all viewers of this film, the remaining “suspense” repeats the same three techniques very slowly so we understand the atmosphere, and as a result avoids sheer tedium but replaces it with predictability and storyline nonsense as characters undergo brain damage in order to allow the plot to stay together. That and gratuitous (and mostly ineffectual) pet death are supposed to shock us into dropping our iPhones into our arugula salad and calling our husband who are working late at their corporate jobs, in hysterics at how “shocking” it all is. Except that it is not. It is babble.

This film could have been great because the metaphor resonates with us all in this time of intense victimhood. For it to do that, however, it would have to overcome its favorable view of victimhood and get serious about its own metaphor, producing a creature that is believable which mimics grief in its ability to consume people, instead of just making them go crazy and act completely against common sense, which makes it impossible for the audience to identify with them. The plot needed a careful structuring to show the reason for the projection of grief into this creature, and then needed some kind of plot device that defeats the evil. It has neither of these. It hides behind sloppy screenwriting which it justifies with the idea that it enhances the mystery or atmosphere, but it does neither. This script is incomplete and what was there did not stretch for the full length of the film.

The Babadook falls short of not only its own potential, but the standard it would need to meet for the experienced suspense-horror audience, but could easily have achieved greatness. The acting — especially by Essie Davis as Amelia — is very well-executed. Cinematography does not strike an excessive note, nor does it stand out as particularly excellent, but it rises far above mediocre. The problem of the storyline dooms this film. “Atmosphere” serves as a cop-out for what really needed to be done: to tell the story of grief and self-pity with an unblinking eye, and by showing us that psychology as a metaphorical monster, revealing what must be done to defeat that crippling choice and sensation in ourselves.

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Bands to watch in 2015

by Brett Stevens on April 17, 2015

A few words from an interview:

17. Let’s talk about your other site, Deathmetal.org. As A.N.U.S. began to die down the real heart and soul of the website, the metal reviews, migrated over to Deathmetal.org. You and the other reviewers are notorious for having incredibly harsh reviews. You show a particular hatred of shoegaze-infused metal, blackened punk, Eastern European droning vacuum cleaner music, and bands with females and spotted owls on vocals. Few bands seem to be able to stand up to scrutiny and as a result your annual ‘Best of’ picks are strikingly different from all the shit that we find published on other sites. What would you say are your favorite metal albums of all time?

I mostly listen to classical music, but these metal albums have stayed in weekly rotation over the years:

  1. Massacra – Final Holocaust
  2. Slayer – Show No Mercy
  3. Incantation – Onward to Golgotha
  4. Sepultura – Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation
  5. Deicide – Legion
  6. Beherit – Drawing Down the Moon
  7. Cianide – A Descent Into Hell
  8. Atheist – Unquestionable Presence
  9. Demilich – Nespithe
  10. Demoncy – Joined in Darkness

The reason my analysis is different than that of other metal sites is that populist writers prioritize surface novelty and underlying similarity to mainstream rock, where I look at metal as a form of art in its own right. It should be measured by the quality of its internal organization and ability to artistically represent a vision of power. The popular “best of” lists specialize in bands that will be forgotten in a few years because when the novelty is gone, they are the same old stuff you could get anywhere else.

18. What contemporary bands should we be paying attention to?

In music as in all things, I am an elitist. This means that I want the best music available because time is short and there is no point wasting it on the trivial. Keep an eye on Demoncy, Sammath, Blaspherian, Kjeld, Desecresy, Kaeck, Blood Urn, and Kever.

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Desultory to launch new album in fall 2015

by Brett Stevens on April 17, 2015

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Swedish heavy metal/death metal band Desultory, who along with Dissection, Unanimated, and Sacramentum paved the way for legions of melodeath to follow, are back in wartime formation and planning to record a new album. The band posted the following to social media:

Ok, so finally! We´re back into the Necromorbus studio, now to record our next full lenght album. We will record during the spring and hope for a release during the fall. Thanx for all your support and patience, this album is for you!

While most of us know this band through their Metal Blade debut (and one of the first big label acknowledgements of death metal) Into Eternity, their collection of demos entitled From Beyond the Visions of Death is also quite worth attending to. It combines the melodic approach of Unanimated with a heavy metal core, which makes it both more accessible and prettier than regular death metal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHcHHbSdGWs

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Slayer unveils new sound with “When the Stillness Comes”

by Brett Stevens on April 17, 2015

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Slayer has introduced a new track, “When Stillness Comes,” from their updated 2015 lineup sans Jeff Hanneman (RIP) and Dave Lombardo, with Paul Bostaph (Forbidden) and Gary Holt (Exodus) filling in on drums and guitars. The track begins with what sounds like an attempt to make a simplified version of the introduction to “South of Heaven” or “Reign in Blood,” but it moves at an oddy pace designed for more comforting rhythm than confrontation. Then the track launches into a sort of Nine Inch Nails tribute with offbeat guitar chords appearing to accent the beat, and lots of chanting vocals. In its final minute or so, the track launches into an appreciable but formulaic impression of older Slayer while not dropping the somewhat groove-oriented approach of newer Slayer

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Bands and labels, please put your stuff on YouTube

by Cory Van der Pol on April 16, 2015

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Bands, labels and artists… we need to have a little talk about YouTube. Specifically, the absence of your official and legitimate releases on YouTube uploaded by you so that royalties go to the bands.

Like many of us, I work in an office. There are many like it, but this one is mine. I have a computer where I am expected to do work. But who is fooled? Most “work” gets done in a few hours in the morning, and the rest of the day is dodging meetings and doing paperwork.

While I have this sort of expensive computer, fat internet access, and these nice Harmon/Kardon speakers, I like to put all this high technology to use as a $4 radio. A $4 radio where I can choose what the DJ plays.

I use YouTube to find music, like many others. The reason is simple: almost no workplaces filter YouTube, and no evidence is left behind. I am not keeping pirated music on my computer and I am not pirating music. I am watching videos. True, these videos seem to feature only the cover image of an album while music (just coincidentally from that album) plays. But nonetheless, technicallyTM they are videos.

Many of you do the same.

I have a problem with this situation. When I want to check out, say, an early death metal classic, I type it in the search blank on YouTube. Then a video comes up. But it does not belong to the band, the label, the musicians, their family, dogs or friends. It belongs to some random guy named “BronyThugLife69” from Hoboken.

Why does this matter? As I type this email, the Deicide video I am enjoying has 132,068 views. At the royalty rate that YouTube pays, which is about 1/10 of a cent per play, that means BronyThugLife69 has earned over a thousand dollars for this video. He’s making bank for the simple act of pasting a cover image onto an MP3, uploading it to YouTube and not getting busted.

Now I click on BronyThugLife69’s profile. Oh look — he has not ten, not a hundred, but a thousand videos. It takes about five minutes to paste ten MP3s and a cover image into a video creation program, save to WMV, and upload to YouTube. If only a hundred people click on each of his videos per month, he’s making a professional salary.

Now, you may ask, why do I not simply upload my own versions of my favorite bands?

Unlike BronyThugLife69, I do not want to make money from someone else’s work. This band wrote the music, got a record contract, recorded the album, promoted it and toured on it. They deserve the money. I could always upload videos without receiving compensation, but that is a boring hobby and I get nothing from it.

Since YouTube is unlikely to go away in the near future, people like me will continue to use it. Bands and labels should, instead of blowing off this opportunity, upload their own albums and make sure the checks go to the band. If they are too lazy to do this, I will do it for them for a royalty of ten percent of their royalties.

This is not difficult. People will listen to your music either way. You can take it down, but that requires constant vigilance because someone else will in turn upload the missing Deicide video. If the band uploads it, the cash goes directly to them.

Is YouTube piracy? Probably, but not really. Most of us are checking out new music or listening to favorites we own back at home. We don’t care that the sound quality is not good. Most will use earphones, or these tiny desktop speakers, because we are in noisy environments or quiet ones and we have to hide the evil devil metal we are enjoying from our coworkers who might exorcise and eviscerate us if they knew.

If you bands and labels could get your act together and upload your own stuff, you would enable me to enjoy guilt-free listening to classics while I file these TPS reports. Me, and millions of other faceless workers at anonymous jobs in generic companies across the world, would really appreciate it.

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Final Destination 2 (2003)

by Brett Stevens on April 15, 2015

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Horror movies, like death metal songs, take one or more basic forms derived from the experience being described which symbolizes a psychological state in the user. Much like childhood night terrors, one form of horror movie is the pursuit themed movie. Final Destination 2 offers a new take on this which expands it into almost postmodern territory: death itself pursues a cast of characters and, because death is metaphysical but can influence the physical world, they find themselves pursued to paranoia because there is no tangible enemy to avoid or beat.

The plot of the Final Destination series stays invariant in its approach: an event which will bring death to a group of people is destined to occur, one of these people has a premonition, and the group avoids death, only to find that it has not forgotten them and like an engineer checking items off a “to do” list, comes after them invisibly and craftily. Death stalks its victims through a variety of Rube Goldberg contraptions made from everyday objects seeming to conspire toward evil ends, which is what makes this movie so fun. No situation is innocent because ordinarily innocent surroundings can, when twisted by the brilliant hand of doom, become fatal for the relatively ordinary and normally blithe people in these films.

Like the characters in the movie, the audience is driven to paranoia because these events have a conspiratorial nature. As the old saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and when small parts are combined with fiendish intelligence, they make death traps that could hide behind any door and every life event. This raises terror to a new level, because instead of characters approaching a known evil, the threat to their lives hides among the ordinary, and life must go on, so they try to survive with as much normalcy as possible despite feeling the breath of death on their necks at every moment. For a death metal fan, this resembles life itself, as “only death is real” and we are aware of the fragility of life, and banish superstition not only with cartoon fantasy visions of the afterlife but with the religious way that people view human life as being independent of nature, chance and anything beyond what we intend, as mediated by careers, commerce and laws.

Perhaps the most telling moment of the underlying thematic material in this film becoming clear involves a character who, having seen another character terminated in gory excess, goes on a lengthy neurotic breakdown rant in which he screams repeatedly, as if trying to convince himself more than others, “I control my life.” Other characters launch into worlds of human construction to hide from death: one talks about her career, another immerses himself in drugs, and another in mourning and self-pity. All come to doom except the few who manage to be both realist and focus on survival, and become aware of the metaphysical and take the threat seriously even though they do not understand it. Final Destination 2 effectively parrots back to modern people (in a more interesting form) the existential terror of death in the anonymous city where at any minute our technology and social order can collapse and leave a trail of victims.

The original Final Destination focused on a plane crash but the second in the series works with the more mundane threats to the modern citizen, which in a way are more terrifying despite the constant mysterious disappearance, shooting down and crashes of planes that have become a staple of the news of late. In this film, death lurks everywhere and a plan exists for each of us determining when we die. This offends our post-Enlightenment sense of being masters of our own fate and wiser than nature, because in this case death acts more like a force of nature than a ghost or spirit, making it terrifying, systematic and relentless.

Knowing the horror genre well, apparently, the filmmakers do not fail to follow the pattern of horror films, which is that characters struggle against their own denial before they encounter a supernatural force, and then only those willing to both believe in it as real and learn about it to fight it on its own terms can prevail. This formula proves effective because it is a metaphor (for Ara) for our own process of learning in life, where our assumptions prove insufficient and we must recognize the failure, drop our pretense of control, and then learn about what we oppose in order to get past it. Tightly scripted and edited, this film keeps suspense high but not uniformly so, creating a graceful story arc which accelerates rapidly before its peak, delivering all of the thrills and wisdom of a horror film in a compact package.

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How to analyze music

by Brett Stevens on April 14, 2015

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Recent posting of an interesting article about transcendent realization in metal provoked a number of confused comments, none of which addressed the substance of the article. The objection was to modern metal, which many view as a misbegotten genre, and to secondarily to the bands involved.

As a thought experiment, I thought I might share some thoughts on analysis of metal. You will not find nice easy binaries and “objective” analyses here, more like qualitative assessments in a shifting frame of reference. Mostly these are questions which do not resolve to nice, uniform and balanced answers. They embrace the controversy.

However, you will find that as you look back over the journey — and that is the best metaphor for experiencing music, that of looking into a field of data — you will see that taken as a whole, the details point toward an overall picture. Your job then is to assess that against all other music and place it in context.

I start with these general questions:

  1. What changes between start and finish?
  2. What patterns can be found?
  3. Do these patterns form a language of sorts?
  4. If so, does it lead to the conclusion?

Art is a communication. Art that extends over time, like novels or music, takes the listener from a starting point to a conclusion. It is not very powerful, usually, to have the precepts equal the conclusion, but sometimes — rarely — a full circle can be revealing, like when one recognizes how utterly futile an idea was when applying it to an experience, and ends up abandoning it. Patterns can consist of any data that is discernibly isolated (relevant to all of its parts) and can often change meaning when repeated. Language uses patterns to build meaning by expressing tokens in context and changing that context to apply more attributes to those tokens. Language leads to a conclusion when internal conflict results in a clear answer as to what has become victorious, been destroyed or a merging of ideas.

These lead to other questions, such as regarding technique:

  1. Does this technique fit a need, or is the need made to fit the technique?
  2. Is it evocative of any real-world experience or vivid thoughts?
  3. Are the values of proportion, balance and purpose applied in this use of the technique?
  4. Is there another more relevant technique that was not use?

The biggest question here is whether the technique is used for a purpose or not. A band that merely makes a list of all techniques, assigns them to songs and then barfs out a song using them will not only be boring, but will miss an opportunity to communicate something more than the technique — including composition — itself. The worst problem here is the “wallpaper effect” where the band does not vary the intensity within each song, creating a listening experience like listening to a faucet on full blast.

I also suggest the following for seeing past aesthetic:

  1. If the lyrics were absent, how well would this piece stand up?
  2. If I played this on a kazoo or acoustic guitar, would it still sound as powerful?
  3. Is there depth to this imagery, or is the song a framing for the presentation of an image?

I find it useful to have a smaller CD player or computer in another room with not-so-excellent speakers. You can fire up the music on one of those and listen from a room or two away, which creates a sort of ad hoc filter that removes the value of production. You end up hearing root notes and rhythm the most, but also lose many of the flourishes that hide the actual music.

Then you should ask of its artistic relevance:

  1. What does this piece of music express?
  2. Does this address something relevant to life itself?
  3. What have I learned or experienced through this piece?

These questions explore significance. That exists on both a musical and thematic level, with the best music having the two operating at once toward the same ends. Music that is relevant expresses something we know of in life, and finds a way to make it beautiful and create transcendence from it. Clarity, or truth about reality, can itself have a transcendent effect in that it clears aside confusion and opens up a pathway to future creation. Good art creates a world that you want to step into and help fight it out so that the best, the beautiful, the good and the interesting prevails over Big Macs and Cheetos.

And then, finally, your duty to the reader:

  1. How many times could I listen to this without getting bored?
  2. In what situations would I discuss with others what this conveyed?
  3. How does this expand the metal lexicon of technique and ideas?

If you are writing as a reviewer, your readers do not have infinite time or money. They can purchase a few albums but are going to rely on these for enjoyment and learning over the course of the coming years. Remember your Bell Curve: most albums are in the middle, with some outright turds to the left and a few real standouts to the right. Your job is to pick the standouts because people can love these for years, and/or some of the high middle albums. Do not be afraid to be vicious. This is the money of normal people being spent on this music, and if they end up dissatisfied, it creates more landfill and causes them to despair on quality. Whatever is rewarded in the marketplace predominates, meaning you get more of it, so any sane person will be strict about quality.

With that being said…

Here’s a couple tracks for you to try. The only comments that are worthwhile are analytical ones. If you want to call someone a fag, go to one of the other threads and call me a fag. I got over it long ago and now I just ask for phone numbers or cock pics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TShpgcNVKU

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On Goatcraft

by Brett Stevens on April 13, 2015

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Lonegoat of necroclassical band Goatcraft issued the following statement today on, of all topics, Death Metal Underground itself. Read on for some clarification of the oddities of Goatcraft coverage for the past year or so, and the “no Goatcraft rule” implemented some time ago.

Brett Stevens is a controversial man. He’s made more armchair activists angry than anyone else on the internet. Founding the legendary Dark Legions Archive, as well as many other groups/websites/etc, his reviews were unmatched and were of the highest linguistic artistry. He created worlds in his reviews that paralleled the musical subjects better than anyone else who ever wrote about metal.

He’s been around since the nascent stage of the internet to this now populace, SJW Tumblr Tranny modern wankery that resembles dumpster diving more than anything else. It’s only suiting that he swapped to writing movie reviews.

For a while I aided Brett by helping out behind the scenes at Deathmetal.org. I wouldn’t really consider it “helping” as I’ve never been a writer nor cared to be one. Usually my contributions were drunken and juvenile. It was what it was.

In return for my contributions, Brett hosted this domain while I was in between jobs and had no spare money to pay for it. About a month after that we had a falling out over a mutual acquaintance and our stances regarding this person. Goatcraft.net was then nuked. Most of the Goatcraft material was pulled from Deathmetal.org at my request. There’s now a No-Goatcraft rule implemented at Deathmetal.org because of all of this.

About 8 months later Brett gave me the Goatcraft.net domain back.

I’m indifferent to what Deathmetal.org is nowadays. There are some good articles like the recent Abominations of Desolation controversy article, although he should’ve been more specific in the article instead of hiding its intent through multiple layers.

This should clear up any confusion regarding the friction between Deathmetal.org and Goatcraft.

Consider it a generous statement and a fair one, and wonder no more why our Goatcraft reviews went away. It is what it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuCRHBsEKtE

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Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

by Brett Stevens on April 12, 2015

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When future history is written, either on the scraps of a dead civilization or the new frontiers of a restored one, it may include a mention of Generation X as a precipice between old and new. In 1989, waves of thought were already concentrating on the idea Francis Fukuyama would express a few years later, which was that history was pretty much over and a final human form had been found. Now, the thought ran, we only had to figure out the parts of life that were not government or economics.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure dropped into this fertile climate like a bomb of pleasant discomfiture. Its ostensibly pleasant message resonated with a nation caught in indecision. The 1960s had legitimized every behavior, but lacking the comforting direction of the 1940s, it felt adrift. It was somewhat clear the Cold War was winding down and change would happen soon. It would arrive in a void of purpose that unsettled Americans. We had prosperity, relative peace and working social institutions, but life still echoed with a basic emptiness.

The plot involves two Southern California kids who, coming from unstable families, have decided to chuck everything and be in a hard rock band. Their challenge awaiting them is that, being disengaged from public reality entirely, they are about to fail history and with it, a year of high school, which will lead to their separation and the death of the band. With the help of a visitor from the future (George Carlin) the two set off to explore history in order to learn what school could not teach them.

Science-fiction nerds will note rather cruelly that this movie may have borrowed its basic plot device from a British series of the 1960s, Dr. Who. Where the Doctor ventured in a call box, American time travelers got a phone booth. Otherwise, the devices resemble each other to a great degree. The plot follows a simple course of introducing the dilemma, then a series of essentially short skits involving a mockery of different historical periods, followed by a somewhat complex confrontation between historical characters and the 1989 world and then a pleasant and satisfying conclusion.

It would be a mistake to write this movie off as shallow, however. Bill and Ted are two of the most wounded characters to occupy the screen during the 1980s. Both have shattered family origins, low self-esteem, and are perplexed by a world that seems like commercials projected onto screens behind which people wallow in insecurity, doubt and meaninglessness. As many did during the 1980s, they hide behind idiocy as a way of shielding themselves from expectations. They find adults hard to take seriously because adults are focused on methods and results, but not quality of experience. Bill and Ted delineate themselves as characters by their pursuit of something above what they know as life, starting with actually having purpose, even if they have no idea how to go about it.

They launch into their adventure with a jovial carefree attitude that dramatically contrasts the adults of the day. Where 1980s authority figures are rigid and demanding, Bill and Ted look to the value of a given experience in itself. As they go through history, this makes them able to adapt to many different circumstances from which they borrow historical personages. On being brought to the setting of the movie in San Dimas, CA, these figures interact with modern locals and quickly show themselves to be far more competent than your average citizen of the modern era. This movie makes contemporary people look like blockheads who depend on rules and rigid social order to keep themselves from drifting into oblivion, and quickly show a kinship between Bill, Ted and their historical counterparts: all of them dream not only bigger, but of something better, even when simply pursuing their own pleasures. In contrast to the spraypaint color and fake tans of Southern California, the historical humans are a flash of brightness like lightning.

Most of us will find the ending to this film somewhat cheesy, but there is no way to avoid it with a plot that completes itself with a finite achievement; emotional closure does not occur, so the filmmakers allow us a few moments of comedic absurdity with one exception. Look for psychoanalysis to make an appearance and underline a vital plot point in the final few minutes of the film. As always, this movie shows a clash between Baby Boomers, who grew up in a world with order and assume it still exists, and Bill and Ted — symbols for Generation X — who awoke in a world that made no sense, was vapid and had no sense of its own history.

In undertaking their journey through greatness of the past, Bill and Ted in many ways summarize their own time. It struggled with literal threats like the Wild West, political instability, invasions, religious wars and neurosis, but now returns back to its roots in the Socratic questions about the value in life itself. This alludes to what Fukuyama wrote about, which is the question before humanity: become mere materialists, or rise above? Bill and Ted answer with a resounding Be excellent to each other, a message that resonated with many back at the end of the Cold War in its transformative formula for a quantitative world to improve itself instead of stagnating.

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