Five Great YouTube Heavy Metal Music Videos

One of the great advantages YouTube has over MTV or MuchMusic is how well it caters to metalheads, no matter the subgenre. You can see a Tupac or Britney Spears video anywhere, but no TV channel will regularly supply your fix of Dream Theater or System of a Down. While pop videos rely on cleavage and ridiculously frequent cuts to hold viewers' interest, and hip-hop videos rely on flashy cars, jewelry and guns, many metal videos can be legitimately called works of art. Here are five of the best official videos you'll only find online.

"Set the World on Fire" by Symphony X (from Paradise Lost)

Although the song isn't my favourite, this has the highest production values I've ever seen in a music video. Producers from the independent German label SPV GmbH combined green screening, digital animation, motion capture and the work of a master painter (see the making-of video) to create a beautifully detailed hell on earth, where angels fight demonic soldiers for the fate of the world, while still showing off the band members' artistry. Proof that the American record conglomerates have no monopoly on good high-budget videos.

"Forsaken" by Dream Theater (from Systematic Chaos)

This anime from Gonzo, the same Japanese studio that created Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" video, this time tells a far more coherent story with even better imagery. As Wikipedia explains, "The song tells of a person who is visited at night by a vampiress. While the man thinks he is being shown 'beautiful things', in reality he is having his blood sucked by the vampiress." At 5 minutes and 36 seconds, it has a friendlier length than most of Dream Theater's work.

"Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" by Serj Tankian (from Elect the Dead)

(This video has been taken down from YouTube. The above link is to another site.)
The lead singer of System of a Down had written some excellent songs for the alternative-metal band, but his solo work is his best yet. This is the only video I've seen that uses text -- in this case, the nearly complete lyrics of the song -- as a major design element, from making a tree spring out of "CREATION" to blowing up a tall tower of "DO WE EVER HAVE ENOUGH". While you're there, check out the videos for all the other songs on Serj's album, Elect the Dead, each a single click away in the side panel.

"Edge and Pearl" by Machinae Supremacy (from Overworld)

Have you heard of Machinae Supremacy? Well, it's time you did. This Swedish band first made a name for itself among the Internet subculture by combining the sound of a SID (the Commodore 64 music chip that's proven to have been well ahead of its time) with more typical hard-rock instrumentation and lyrics based on video games and anime. This is one of their less electronic, more metal songs. While fans in Scandinavia and North America alike continue to puzzle over what piece of popular culture it references, few can deny it's a great song with a great video. Perfectly condensing the atmosphere of a horror film (though without an apparent plot) into less than four minutes, this clip still lets us see five excellent rockers ply their trade.

"Ten Thousand Strong" by Iced Earth (from Framing Armageddon)

Another example of SPV's great video work, this piece features cel-shading throughout (including the footage of the band), beautifully-rendered ancient buildings, and sophisticated spaceships. It's the most upbeat song in an excellent series of two and a half concept albums called the Something Wicked Saga, a fine piece of science fiction that presents an interesting role reversal on the ancient astronaut theory. Perfect battle hymn for anyone who feels like the whole human race is against them.