A gregarious bunch of leather daddies or a budget Italian power metal band? You decide!I know that making fun of Italian metal is easy. It's like when the two inbred main characters have sex with the retarded girl in Gummo. It's almost too easy, but I just can't help myself. See, a while back the Sarge introduced us to the world of budget slam metal, perhaps best exemplified by Artery Eruption, and now I'd like to introduce you to the kings of budget Italian power metal--Kaledon. These Roman warriors have displayed an undying allegiance to all things lo-fi and low-budget that has left them unchallenged atop the steaming pile of shit that is budget Italian power metal.
Here we see the crowd (all two of them) going wild as Kaledon performs their smash hit "Spirit of the Dragon." A force of nature, Kaledon is best experienced live as the sheer sonic force of their performances have been credited with causing at least a half dozen suicides across the Lazio region.
This reminds me of the kind of picture I would expect to see hanging up in the dining room of any number of my Italian family members. You see Italian dining rooms are not actually meant for dining, they're more for show. That's where you display all the wonderful useless shit you got at your wedding 30 years ago like your gigantic china closet filled with fine china you never use--you know, the good stuff--along with your crystal and your special silverware (the kind that's actually made of silver). You'll usually also find an enormous dining table covered in a gawdy white lace tablecloth some grandmother spent a lifetime making. If your Italian family is anything like mine then the dining table chairs are probably hermetically sealed in plastic and will never be exposed to the elements. And no matter how big of a loser he may be, an Italian mother will always be proud of her son because he is her pride and joy and so she will have several photo albums worth of embarassing pictures of him and she will gladly display a picture from his first communion right next to the picture he took with his friends out near the Roman Aqueduct while dressed like a gang of child molesting Renaissance fairies in a gigantic gold plated frame. Mama is especially proud of that 12 inch boner you're smuggling in your leather pants.
More often than not "serious musicians" are all business, but not the ragazzi of Kaledon! It's refreshing to see that the boys can just as easily spend a day relaxing in the studio, joking around and having a good time instead of spending hours carefully trimming their facial hair while their little sister repeatedly bangs on the bathroom door because she has to pee and dad yells to finish jerking off and get out of the bathroom because he has to take a shit.
One thing you could never accuse Kaledon of doing is progressing. Just look at the cover of their debut album, Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 1: The Destruction.
Now take a look at the cover of their most recent album, 2008's Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 5: A New Era Begins.
From the unforgettable amateur paintbrush to the utterly forgettable amateur computer illustration, Kaledon is never content to rest on their laurels. They've never let their complete and utter lack of talent stop them before so why start now?
I'd like to leave you with what I think is the most compelling piece of evidence in the case for Kaledon's budget Italian power metal supremacy--the music video for their hit single "The New Kingdom." I could spend days tearing apart every frame, but instead let me just point out how proud they are of their packages as we once again see a band member proudly displaying his manhood in his way-too-tight white linen pants. It's impossible not to notice the tremendously low production values of this video, but it's obvious that the men of Kaledon make up for what they lack financially with their boundless enthusiasm for their horrible music. It's hard not to admire that kind of dedication. Against all odds and good sense, Kaledon endures and to that I must say--forza, Kaledon!
As an added bonus for our Italian speaking readers enjoy this equally retarded parody video:
