One of the rituals to get me in the zone for work, particularly for my fuzzy-headed, easily distracted morning brain, is to plug in the ear buds and crank the tunes. And by tunes, I mean the noisier and louder the better.
When it comes to music I enjoy a lot of genres. Yet, while maintaining concentration amidst office chatter is impossible for me, there’s something about good metal or guitar-heavy classic rock invading the senses that blocks out extraneous thoughts. It allows me to focus on the words and the task at hand.
A fairly quiet boomer nearing the age of retirement, I’m apparently a bit of a surprise among my colleagues for this choice of music. Yet with hands poised over the keyboard, it took Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell to get my day underway. Full of growling vocals and the complex metal groove of the late Dimebag Darrell’s guitar, it not only got me into the groove too it inspired a topic.
Heavy metal plays to the imagination. It conjures images of a darker realm. Maybe not the underworld, but there’s a sinister vibe to it for sure.
Also, where jazz, blues or oldies will slide into the psyche, metal is in your face. These aren’t ditties to be played at dinner after all. They are instead the soundtrack for Halloween.
So as I listened to the words of Cowboys from Hell, Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction, etc., as I remembered that the night when devils roam is just a few days away, it seemed that the time to share this creepy photo collection was now:
