THE ART OF DYING
In my first year of medical school, a classmate told me that if you
tickled an old guy where his colostomy bag attached to his body, he’d
die faster. When I went around a local nursing home testing his theory,
I ended up smelling like shit and lightening everyone’s mood— and NOT
ONE of those colon-challenged prunes kicked it. In fact, I left them
happier than if they had a pair of wrinkled tits in their faces, even
happier than I was after hearing DEATH ANGEL’s return to the world with
a killer thrash album called
The Art of Dying.
Drummer Andy Galeon and the others almost went down the shitter when
DA’s tour bus crashed in the Arizona desert in 1990, clouding the
band’s future faster than I spank loads into my favorite backroom
nurses (doc’s gotta work fast when there’s a full waiting room). Not as
scorchingly fast though as Galeon’s frenzied drum work and the seamless
connection with Ted Aguilar and Rob Cavestany’s shredding guitars. You
add some layered lyrics about spirituality, hell, heaven, and the life
in between, and this band’s returned from the grave with a hard-on
stiffer than the prosthetic flagpoles I had to work around in anatomy
class.
They’ve got the whole damn package together slicker than a
glove lubed with KY, as if the gap in the band’s existence had never
happened. Confident as a METALLICA (one of the acts they’ve "supported"
on tour), DEATH ANGEL’s bound to be as popular again as roving prostate
exam clinics in the Bay Area, where these guys started out as one of
youngest, most successful thrash metal bands around. Vocalist Mark
Oseguda’s not afraid to let you hear every word he’s singing, because
he knows his crew’s good (unlike my underpaid physician assistants who
try to fuck me over every chance they get). DA’s got a natural sense of
song structure, and an impressive range. They can easily flip from
scathing, testosterone-injected tracks like "Thrown To The Wolves" to a
moving ballad like "Word To The Wise" without straying from their
band’s unique identity. With all the goddamn malpractice suits pending
against me, I know how difficult that can be. These guys don’t need to
hide their songs under overbearing instrumentals (or send their
overbearing wives to the bottom of the ocean where they belong) like so
many other wannabe metal bands out there.
They know how to make a small phrase like "25 to life" stick
in your head with well-placed shifts in rhythm and chords, almost
effortlessly (this, on the track "5 Steps of Freedom," reminding me of
my marriage:
1. get plastic bag.
2. place plastic bag around hag’s head
3. squeeze neck tight
4. repeat 3 for as long as necessary).
They handle religious themes with a biting sarcasm, but have sudden
Tourette’s outbursts of optimism, like in the last lines of "Word to
the Wise" when Oseguda sings, "there’s hope for the world today I
know." Yeah, and thankfully, such a thing as trial and error too. You
don’t tickle them in the colostomy bag, I’ve learned. You tear the
whole fuckin’ thing off.
