The legendary animated metal band is back with Dethalbum IV, a Def Leppard-in-an-arena-sized approach to gruesome, Cannibal Corpse-style riffage. Metalocalypse mastermind Brendon Small tells us how his cartoon came to life.
If fate hadn’t intervened, Dethklok’s newest album, Dethalbum IV—the first since 2012’s Dethalbum III—probably would’ve sounded quite different than it does. That’s because Dethklok mastermind Brendon Small would’ve enlisted his tried-and-true equipment: enviable guitars up the wazoo, a go-to Marshall cabinet with Celestion speakers, and at least a few mics. Instead, some thieves saw to it that Small take a different approach when they robbed his home studio.
“I think some people saw me carrying guitars back and forth and crowbarred my studio door, so my main A-league guitars were kaput,” Small recalls somberly. After the robbery, he moved everything out and went undercover. “I went into the modern world of direct recording,” he explains. “It pushed the record into a different place than my normal ‘safety gear’ would’ve.” In the theater world, one might raise their hands above their heads and exclaim gleefully, “unexpected results!”—the inevitable and, often, positive outcomes of unintended actions.
Metalocalypse: Dethklok | Gardener of Vengeance (Lyric Video) | Adult Swim
If anyone knows a thing or two about unexpected results (and theatrics), it’s Brendon Small. Having cultivated a career that he refers to as “whatever it is that I do for a living,” Small somehow managed to marry a Berklee College of Music guitar education with Emerson College comedy-writing classes to create a wildly unique career path for himself. Born in 1975, Small first gained widespread recognition as the creator, writer, and co-producer of the animated television series Home Movies, which aired from 1999 to 2004. The show followed the humorous exploits of a young boy named Brendon, his friends, and their amateur filmmaking endeavors. Small’s most notable achievement, however, came with the creation of Adult Swim’s animated cult classic Metalocalypse. It was the medium through which he finally, successfully, combined his songwriting and comedy-writing talents.
Premiering in 2006 and running for four seasons, Metalocalypse depicted the fictional band Dethklok embarking upon absurdly dark adventures as the self-proclaimed “heaviest metal band ever created.” Metalocalypse blended humor, satire, and heavy metal culture with sharp musical performances and scores, creating a unique and, ultimately, beloved experience for metalheads and animation fans alike. Small created and produced the series, provided the voices for several main characters, and composed most of the music featured in the show, including the tracks performed by Dethklok. In August, nearly a decade since the cliffhanger ending of The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera in 2013, Metalocalypse finally returned with a full-length animated movie. Written and directed by Small, Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar brings Nathan Explosion (vocals), Skwisgaar Skwigelf (lead guitar), Toki Wartooth (rhythm guitar), William Murderface (bass), and Pickles (drums) back together for another action-packed journey.
Brendon Small's Gear
Dethklok creator Brendon Small resurrected the animated band this year after a decade-long hiatus.
Guitars
- Epiphone Brendon Small GhostHorse Explorer
- Fender Jazz Bass
- Gibson Explorer
- Gibson Snow Falcon Flying V
- Ibanez JS240PS with Sustainiac mod
- Ibanez Tom Quayle Signature TQM1
Amps & Effects
- Neural DSP Quad Cortex Quad-Core Digital Effects Modeler
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop DEN09544 Electric Nickel .095–.044
- Dunlop Ultex 1.14mm
Released in conjunction with the movie, Dethalbum IV is a bludgeoning aural assault that showcases Small’s knack for combining glossy production with “some of the ugliest sounds” he could conjure. “There’s this melding of the putrid and the beautiful that I’m trying to smash together,” he attests. Songs like “Aortic Desecration,” “Gardner of Vengeance,” and “Poisoned by Food” may be lyrically silly and satirical—even gross—but the music is serious business, on par with Mastodon, Lamb of God, and other like-minded metal bands who combine cunning songcraft with stunning instrumental proficiency. Riff-heavy, melodic, and merciless, Dethalbum IV is an expertly crafted record where death growls are overtaken by soaring melodies and vice versa, guitar histrionics are undergirded by monstrous grooves courtesy of drummer Gene Hoglan, and the production aesthetic, perhaps largely due to Small’s unintended switch to direct recording, is easily Dethklok’s slickest yet.
Simply put, Dethalbum IV is a fierce musical statement that deftly combines hook-laden melodicism with fist-pumping metal. “There was a point where I was listening to this record, and I’m standing back and going, ‘This is much more aggressive and much heavier than a Dethklok record normally,’” Small explains. “[Producer] Ulrich Wild really landed the bird with this one, getting it to that aggressive and modern place, which is somewhere between Cannibal Corpse and Def Leppard’s Hysteria.” Small calls this amalgamation of influences “stuff that hits your DNA” when you’re a kid. “The impressionable parts stay with you,” he admits.
“Doing a Dethklok show is like storming the beach at Normandy during a laser tag battle.”
Despite being Dethklok’s de facto studio guitarist, what really sets Small apart from many other contemporary shredders is that he considers himself a writer first and foremost. “Ever since I had a guitar, I was always trying to write music on it,” he says. “Even when I couldn’t play it, I would just start to write ideas or lines or a riff on the lower strings.” Composition first, and then form-fit around it, he likes to say. “I like to come up with stuff, either in the script form or with some kind of instrument hanging around, from keyboard to guitar to spoons—whatever I can do.”
Even though he ultimately gravitated towards traditional recording techniques (like a mic in front of a speaker cab), Small admits that having digital options early on made his guitar and comedy-writing career possible. “I don’t think I could have made music unless I had that Line 6 POD in the very beginning,” he admits. “I’m a writer who happens to play guitar, and I have to find a way to mangle these sounds into something that makes sense. I’ve got to get the sounds down in the big notepad that is the Pro Tools session.”
Though his return to direct recording was a matter of necessity, it was influential to the overall sound of Dethalbum IV, and Small asserts that he tried to let the music unfold naturally. “At some point, I look at the record and go, ‘Whatever this is, I can’t stop it from being what it needs to be,’” he says. “There’s something in the pineal gland that’s driving it from the astral plane pushing it forward.” Ultimately, he attests, the Dethklok characters start to take over in his mind: “Nathan Explosion is making decisions, and Skwisgaar wants more notes, and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ll see if I can make it work because I’m not as good as that guy,’ so I have to really work it.”
After thieves plundered his home studio, Small decided to record Dethalbum IV without any amps—a homecoming of sorts for the early Line 6 POD user.
Speaking of Skwigelf, Small cites one big difference between Dethalbum IV and previous Dethklok records. “Now Skwisgaar has a whammy bar and 24 frets,” he chuckles. “There are dive-bombs on this record that I never did before, but I wanted to be able to do what Jeff Beck did, get a little bit more expressive—go from the fixed bridge to the whammy. I’ve had guitars with it, but I just wanted to finally put them on the record. There’s just a little bit more goose in it.”
“I think if you’ve decided to jump onto the carnival train that is your own creative life, you have to bob, weave, fail, and succeed all in a matter of 20 minutes every single day.”
Small’s cross-section of music and comedy began during his time at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in his junior year. “I started having forward thoughts of my impending doom, like, ‘I’m going to graduate, and what the hell am I going to do with this guitar? I love it, I hate it. What am I going to do?’” he recalls. He was also having a hard time corralling the school’s curriculum into a solid identity for his own guitar playing. “I’m in a jazz chord lab figuring out what Joe Pass used to do. Then, I’m thinking about Danny Gatton in my country lab, and then I have advanced concepts of prog-rock where I’m learning about Gentle Giant, and then I’m in traditional harmony trying to mimic an étude or learn how to write a chorale, or voice leading, or figured bass, or any of that cool stuff, and I’m having some kind of musical identity crisis and fearing the end of school and the real world.”
Instead of going the weekend-warrior route via gigs posted on a corkboard at Berklee, Small pursued internships at two different jingle houses in New York. One was David Horowitz Music Associates, and the other was Michael Levine Music. “Michael Levine wrote the Kit Kat theme: ‘Give me a break, give me a break…,’” Small sings. He soon realized that his roommate Jed, from Emerson College, had what he deemed a much cooler internship with Conan O’Brien.
For real-life concert appearances, Small brings Dethklok to life alongside an all-star band that includes Mike Keneally (guitar), Nili Brosh (guitar), Bryan Beller and Pete Griffin (bass), and Gene Hoglan (drums).
Small’s fly-on-the-wall experience tagging along with Jed at the late-night talk show prompted him to draw up a plan for his future. “I went back to Berklee in my final year, and I started taking writing classes along with Emerson [students],” he explains. His assignments included writing a spec script and a sample episode of a TV show, and demonstrating he could write character, story, jokes, and tone. “I saw that it’s like a good piece of music,” he says. “You’ve got an A theme, a B theme, and maybe a C theme, and how do they all intertwine into this final pocket at the very end?” Conceptually and structurally, it made sense for Small: “It was like the études I was studying. There was something baroque about it that I understood.”
These combined college experiences ultimately led Small to start thinking about the intersections of songwriting, screenwriting, and acting, and how that combination might be a viable career path for him. “If you can make sense of your guitar enough to score music, I think ultimately that’s a battle of you versus yourself,” he says. “Once you prove that you can take this foreign object [a guitar] and make it a part of you, you can do that with anything. You just have to learn where the knobs are, where the frets are, how to bend notes, and how to find your rhythm. Everything’s a storyline, from a piece of music to a piece of media. Whatever it is, there’s a beginning, a middle, and end. Ultimately, it did me well to think of them as similar things.”
“Everything’s a storyline, from a piece of music to a piece of media. Whatever it is, there’s a beginning, a middle, and end. Ultimately, it did me well to think of them as similar things.”
To bring Dethklok to life for this year’s Babyklok Tour alongside Babymetal, Small enlisted heavyweights Mike Keneally (guitar), Nili Brosh (guitar), Bryan Beller and Pete Griffin (bass), and Hoglan (drums). While preparing to hit the road, Small was focused on the aspects of live performance that the concert experience demands of him. “Doing a Dethklok show is like storming the beach at Normandy during a laser-tag battle,” he chuckles. “There’s lights and craziness and fog and haze, and you’re like, ‘Where am I?’ There’s a lot of muscle memory and position memory that has to be there. I have to think about the lyrics, the vocalizing, and if all I can see is the low E string, and I’m on the high E string, I have to trust that my hand remembers where it needs to be.”
Circling back to “whatever it is I do for a living,” Small offers the following wisdom for those interested in pursuing an artistic life: “I think if you’ve decided to jump onto the carnival train that is your own creative life, you have to bob, weave, fail, and succeed all in a matter of 20 minutes every single day,” he says. “How do you stand back and try to conceptualize and solve a problem? I think that’s what makes it fun, and treacherous, and terrifying, and filled with failure, and a little bit of success.”
YouTube It
Dethklok shreds a live performance of "Thunderhorse" for the Adult Swim Festival Block Party, combining thrilling Metalocalypse-style animation with furious technical performances.
Nineties-style high-gain heaviness that can be surgically tailored with a powerful EQ.
Excellent variations on high-gain modern distortion tones. Powerful EQ.
Not many low- or mid-gain sounds here.
$199
JHS Hard Drive
jhspedals.com
JHS makes many great and varied overdrive stomps. Their Pack Rat is a staple on one of my boards, and I can personally attest to the quality of their builds. The new Hard Drive has been in the works since as far back as 2016, when Josh Scott and his staff were finishing off workdays by jamming on ’90s hard rock riffs.
During these sessions, Scott’s go-to pedal was the Ibanez SM7 Smash Box. He realized that JHS had never offered anything along those lines, conferred with his then lead engineer, Cliff Smith, and the wheels were set in motion. Over several years of design, the Hard Drive evolved from an SM7 homage to a unique, original circuit.
JHS’ Hardest to Date
The Hard Drive’s control panel is streamlined, consisting of knobs for volume, mid frequency, drive, bass, middle, and treble. Driven by cascading gain stages, the Hard Drive can cop a wide range of modern distorted tones. Even at the lowest drive settings, the Hard Drive simmers, delivering massive bottom end on muted power chords. Nudging the drive up very slightly transforms the Hard Drive into a roaring Marshall JCM 900. And if you bring the drive all the way up, you’re in for all out chaos. Even with an amp set just louder than bedroom levels, the Hard Drive, with its volume at just 11 o’clock, is very loud and in-your-face. You don’t have to work hard to imagine how this could sound and feel like multiple stacks raging at Madison Square Garden in the context of a recorded track.
Even at the lowest drive settings, the Hard Drive simmers, delivering massive bottom end.
Zoning the Frequencies
Unlike some heavy pedals that concern themselves with mega-gain and little else, the Hard Drive’s EQ controls are very effective and powerful. Moving the treble knob from 11 o’clock to 1 o’clock changes the pedal’s tone and response characteristics completely, opening up and transforming the naturally relatively dark sound of my Fender Super Sonic amp. Turning the treble knob all the way off with the bass and mid knobs at noon gives me a vocal lead tone that’s creamy, warm, and still immediate and responsive.
The middle and mid frequency controls work in tandem. The mid control itself works as a cut or boost. The mid frequency control, however, lets you choose the specific frequency you cut or boost. I found these controls invaluable for sculpting tones that could leverage the copious gain without being abrasive. Meanwhile, adding more high midrange lends clarity to complex chords.
The Verdict
The Hard Drive is an unapologetically heavy pedal—if you’re looking for a dirt box that can double as a clean boost, well, the Hard Drive is not that. It’s meant to slay with gain, and it performs this task well and with a vengeance. There are countless dirt boxes on the market that deliver hot rodded, ’80s-style brown sound. Fewer cater to the subsequent generations of high-gain players that used the ’80s as a mere jumping-off point. The Hard Drive is very much voiced for this strain of heavy music. If that’s your jam, the Hard Drive is hard to beat.
Tailored for Yngwie Malmsteen's signature sound, the MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive is designd to offer simple controls for maximum impact.
Working closely alongside Yngwie, the MXR design team created a circuit that delivers clarity, expressive dynamics, and rich harmonics—all perfectly tailored for his light-speed arpeggios, expressive vibrato, and big, bold riffs. The control setup is simple, with just Level and Gain knobs.
"Want to sound like Yngwie? Crank both knobs to the max."
“This pedal is the culmination of 45+ years developing a sound that’s perfect in every possible way,” Yngwie says. “I present to you: the MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive. Prepare to be amazed.”
MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive highlights:
- Perfectly tailored for Yngwie Malmsteen's signature sound and style
- Simple control setup tuned for maximum impact
- Boost every nuance with superior clarity, expressive dynamics, and rich harmonics
- Dig into light-speed arpeggios, expressive vibrato, and big, bold riffs
The MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive is available now at $129.99 street/$185.70 MSRP from your favorite retailer.
For more information, please visit jimdunlop.com.
Voltage Cable Company's new Voltage Vintage Coil 30-foot guitar cable is now protected with ISO-COAT technology to provide unsurpassed reliability.
The new coiled cables are available in four eye-grabbing retro colors – Surf Green, Electric Blue, Orange and Caramel – as well as three standard colors: Black, White and Red. There is also a CME exclusive “Chicago Cream” color on the way.
Guitarists can choose between three different connector configurations: straight/straight plugs, right angle/straight and right angle/right angle options.
The Voltage Vintage Coil offers superior sound quality and durability thanks to ISO-COAT treatment, a patent-pending hermetic seal applied to solder terminations. This first-of-its-kind airtight seal prevents corrosion and oxidization, a known factor in cable failure and degradation. ISO-COAT protected cables are for guitarists who value genuine lifetime durability and consistent tone throughout their career on stage and in the studio.
Voltage cables are hand made by qualified technical engineers using the finest components available and come with a lifetime warranty.
Voltage Vintage Coil features include:
- Lifetime guarantee, 1000+ gig durability
- ISO-COAT treatment - corrosion & oxidization resistant cable internals
- Strengthened structural integrity of solder terminations
Voltage Vintage Coils carry $89.00 USD pricing each and are available online at voltagecableco.com, as well as in select guitar stores in North America, Australia, Thailand, UK, Belgium and China.
About Voltage Cable: Established in 2021, Voltage Cable Co. is a family owned and operated guitar cable company based in Sydney, Australia. All their cables are designed to be played, and built for a lifetime. The company’s ISO-COAT is a patent pending hermetic seal applied to solder terminations.
Featuring dual-engine processing, dynamic room modeling, and classic mic/speaker pairings, this pedal delivers complete album-ready tones for rock and metal players.
Built on powerful dual‑engine processing and world‑class UAD modeling, ANTI 1992 High Gain Amp gives guitarists the unmistakable sound of an original "block letter" Peavey 5150 amplifier* – the notorious 120‑watt tube amp monster that fueled more than three decades of modern metal music, from Thrash and Death Metal, to Grunge, Black Metal, and more.
"With UAFX Dream, Ruby, Woodrow, and Lion amp emulators, we recreated four of the most famous guitar amps ever made," says UA Sr. Product Manager Tore Mogensen. "Now with ANTI, we're giving rock and metal players an authentic emulation of this punishing high gain amp – with the exact mic/speaker pairings and boost/noise gate effects that were responsible for some of the most groundbreaking modern metal tones ever captured."
Key Features:
- A complete emulation of the early '90s 120‑watt tone monster that defined new genres of modern metal
- Powerful UAFX dual-engine delivers the most authentic emulation of the amp ever placed in a stompbox
- Complete album‑ready sounds with built‑in noise gate, TS‑style overdrive, and TC‑style preamp boost
- Groundbreaking Dynamic Room Modeling derived from UA's award-winning OX Amp Top Box
- Six classic mic/speaker pairings used on decades of iconic metal and hard rock records
- Professional presets designed by the guitarists of Tetrarch, Jeff Loomis, and The Black Dahlia Murder
- UAFX mobile app lets you access hidden amp tweaks and mods, choose overdrive/boost, tweak noise gate, recall and archive your presets, download artist presets, and more
- Timeless UA design and craftsmanship, built to last decades
For more information, please visit uaudio.com.