Hello friends.I love heavy metal. I love it. I lurrrve it. Hit me with some dropped D, nay, nay, dropped C nastiness and watch the grin spread across my face. I begin to thrash and jiggle in merriment, my bowels loosened by subatomic bass rumblings, my hair burnt by the sheer ferocity of the aural gorescape.
Heavy metal bands love H.P. Lovecraft. Lyrically, thematically, sonically, the influences are all there. It warms the cockles of my blackened heart to think of my favorite thrashers cozying up for some quality time in front of the hell fire whilst sipping blood-wine and eating sacrificial goat-meat. I decided to follow suit and try some Lovecraft, beginning with At the Mountains of Madness.
Bad choice.
I will read more Lovecraft. I will probably even re-read this one. But damn! For the uninitiated, this novella was more like a novHELLa. The narrator is a scientist who is trying to recount his horrifying adventures in a vast snow-city. Which involves...CAVE DRAWINGS! ARCHITECTURE! MUTANT PENGUINS! Actually... mutant penguins are pretty sweet (as GWAR has taught us all.) But the rest...so...fucking...boring.
I think the problem is this. At the Mountains... is really more of a Sci-Fi story than horror. Every detail is taken into account as pure scientific fact, and is described in an academic, rather than visceral manner. Every time tension was being built up, the narrator cut into his own story to provide historical and scientific background that left me cold.
I will read more Lovecraft, but now I have to cleanse with a screening of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer along with a good dose of High on Fire.
Happy New Year mofo's!
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