BECAUSE ELEPHANTS MARCHING SOUND SCARIER IN RUSSIAN THAN FINNISH

Whilst ooh-ing and aah-ing over our fleshly printed new MetalSucks t-shirts just before the holiday, Axl shared with me the self-given names he’s attributed to various musical techniques often employed by metal bands. As the possessor of a touch more formal musical training out of the two of us (and believe me that ain’t saying much), through some spirited air guitar and humming I was able to let him know the technical terms for his own jargon, such as “the speed-up” (guitar triplets) and “the slow down” (when the drummer switches to half-time), among others. But one meme defies official explanation; “elephants marching,” because simply put that shit just sounds like elephants marching and you know it when you hear it.

Which brings us to Kypck (pronounced “Kursk”), a Finnish melo-doomish band with Russian lyrics (?!) of whom MS reader Jake Haras politely reminded us. Elephants marching. Elephants marching passages seem to often (“Stalingrad,” below) but not always (“Chernaya Dyra,” on the band’s MySpace page) seem to occur in meters of 2, and are usually slow. That’s the best I can do, Axl. Thanks, Jake, for reminding me of the amount of ass which this band kicks.

-VN