That’s right, mudda-fuckahs!!  Dragonforce.  let the haters start hatin’!!!  I LOVE these guys, so freakin’ excommunicate me from the Metal club…I could not possibly care less, because while I’m loving the killer music herein, you can solace your miserable, condescending lives by replaying “Jane Doe” ad infinitum until you slit your elitist wrists open…Meanwhile, I’ll be pounding killer ales and raging to awesome Metal, of the Power- ilk or otherwise!!!

Dragonforce - "The Power Within"

Whatever the hell you called their last crappy album - this is FATHOMS and LEAGUES better than that crap was…I think they were trying to get Z.P. Theart out of there, and put out that freaking awful pap smear of an album…This is nothing like that trash…This kicks ass the way their breakout “Inhuman Rampage” did…The detractors will, rightfully, claim this is almost TOO similar to that album.  Hey, nobody’s calling out Motorhead or AC/DC, so don’t call these guys out, please (yeah, I know they don’t have the street cred yet to elicit such devotion, but spare me the hypocrisy for at least ten minutes, will ya?!)…

New vocalist Marc Hudson does an admirable job, but c’mon, he’s no Z.P. He lacks the range, so that is what it is…Sorry…

Speaking of fine ale, which we weren’t by the way, tonight we have a World Class level elite ale: Russian River Brewing’s Beatification, bottled 01/10/12 (scumbag beer snob assholes will call this batch 5. But the brewers themselves decided to eschew that label, instead opting to go with bottle-dating. If someone gives you crap about this bit of trivial minutiae, kick their ass and tell them Eugene Robinson sent you…)

Is this stuff cheesy (not the beer – we’ll get to that again in a moment…part of the problem with the “three beer” review is the rambling associated with early-drunkenness): absolutely. But it’s fuckin’ fun, and you can’t deny how much ass the guitar players kick. Just watch this early video (they drink beer in it, during the solos, ferchrissakes!!):

copyright someone other than me some year other than 2012

So, all kidding aside, this is the 2012 Power Metal album to beat right now. I hope the dudes at Metalcamp figure this out and invite Dragonforce to play as a late addition (hell, maybe they are already on the bill..I have no idea).

Now, back to the beer. This is a spontaneously fremented, barrel-aged ale. It sits forever in barrels and waits until ambient, wind-and-otherwise-borne yeasts and bacterias “infect” it and cause alcohol and crazy, rambunctious flavors to enhance its beverage qualities. Its original incarnations (i.e. batches one through four) were insanely popular and hard to find. This one tastes painfully similar to their normal sour blonde, and for that reason might be a letdown to the snobs. Heck, they still have bottles for sale at the brewery, so it clearly isn’t demanding the same value amongst the beer “intelligentsia” that the earlier batches were. That’s those idiots’ problems, because I’m wickidly impressed by this beer. It’s sharp sourness, and complex barrel-aging characteristics, make me happy, kind of like the new Dragonforce!!

So, in closing: get the new Dragonforce for a good, Power Metal-ing time and drink RRB’s fine ales…’nuff said…