crystal mountain is my go to death metal recommendation song for people who’ve never heard the genre. it’s such an anomaly in the sense that is can be wildly brutal while also being incredibly lyrical and instrumentally grand. it pretty much embodies peak death metal. true 10/10
As a Christian, this song really hits, religious hypocrisy is highly annoying and makes people hate religion a lot. But I can't help but to think I'm part of the problem to be honest, no one is perfect. Jesus also really harshly judged the hypocrites, any Christian that uses the bible to justify treating people wrong should stop calling themselves Christians. Thank you for another awesome deep dive
Bro, thing to consider is religion is politics... No way around. The good christian is the one pushing particular goals... All religions are chrystal mountains... Although, all of them fascinating...
Being a fan of Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, the Hungarian scale on piano hit a chord in me. I had never noticed this detail. Just in case y’all don’t know yet, Bartók is one of the most metal composers. Check this video on youtube: “Quatuor Ebène : Bela Bartok String quartet Nr. 4 C-major Sz 91”.
I think Chuck is actually playing notes for those overdubs. They just sound really crunchy because of how he attacks the strings with his pick along with the flanger effect. You can hear the overdubs clearly without the flanger effect in the demo for Crystal Mountain.
@@VARVIS_ I think its chorus but on the whole song. My first guitar teacher told me the secret to a killer heavy tone was to put a small amount of chorus over your distortion. I don't think I agree with him, but to me that tone sounds exactly like Death's tone, Symbolic and TSOP in particular, just that TSOP has a way harsher sounding solid state distortion. The chorus gives the distortion a lot of high end sparkle for chords and lead sections, but the pulse of the chorus pedal mixed with the distortion makes a very flanger-esque sound if you let it ring out. The only other song I can think of that might also be mixing chorus with distortion is Plush by STP. I like the tone on that song and I've heard people describe it as a sparkly chainsaw. To me it sounds like those are either pick scrapes or chugs on fully muted strings done with the chorus/dist tone. Its most likely a chorus pedal they use for the clean section tone so I think they just leave it on when they turn the distortion on too.
Thank you for keeping the spirit alive. Chuck was a pioneer of metal in so many ways. He may not have been the creator of the death metal sound(as the elitists argue) but he was by far the most influential. He broke the stereotype of the brainless evil/gore music and made truly thought provoking music with so much depth that to this day no one can come close to. As an adult I thank his lyrics for getting me into philosophy and psychology. The lyrics weren’t hugely philosophical themselves but as a teenager they blew my mind. Nowadays the stoic, reflective, and compassionate nature of the lyrics are ingrained in my way of thinking. I almost always go back to them when I need inspiration.
Interestingly, I'd think around the same time frame, a band named Mayhem, released an album with a suicide photo of their vocalist and constantly criticized bands like Death in the US for making intricate musical compositions that didn't sound like they only knew three chords and recorded it on cassette in a basement.
@@transilvanianxhunger Point is, compared to Death, Mayhem couldn't even carry their gear regarding creativity and musicianship. Their entire appeal is sounding like shit and pretending that they are musicians while they burn churches, seek for a new extreme in shock value and kill each other because they agreed they all loved Venom, but couldn't agree on anything else
@@hockeyeverything4339 whoa there, what you’re saying about their behavior is accurate as far as them being extreme, but you can’t deny they had a huge influence in metal and some of their albums are considered classics by many. I think comparing mayhem to death is odd, it’s a completely different style of music. Death is very simple in comparison to Suffocation but it doesn’t make them less good.
@@transilvanianxhunger You do you. But I think they're a joke. Frost, Sodom, Bathory, Destruction in the early years were all superior to Mayhem. They just ripped off some titles, album titles from those bands and gained notoriety through criminal acts. They're a fuckin joke
@@hockeyeverything4339 sounds like you have your mind made up, but there’s literally millions of people into Norwegian black metal and they were at the forte front of that movement. I think that speaks for itself. And for the record I wasn’t disagreeing on your original point I was just saying the timeline was off.
Always happy to see these song analyses in my feed. Crystal Mountain was the first Death song I ever heard and got me into the band. But for all the times I’ve listened to it, I’ve never lingered long enough to pick out the things that make it awesome. You’re right - it hits at a subconscious level regardless, but it’s so cool to go through and see what makes the song tick. Chuck wrote such best music and lyrics to go with it. Keep the analyses coming
Dude this is the stuff I'm looking for on youtube. I have already analyzed the song by myself but seeing it from a different perspective really helped. I saw the things that I missed in the song, thank you for your wonderful work
19:36 sound is probably something done in post production. It is definitely a flanger. That "airplane flyover" effect is a dead giveaway. They probably recorded a version of the riff with a flanger on and put that track on a fader so they could fade it in and out during the mix process.
Great stuff man. Glad I stumbled on your channel. Sometimes, metal is more than yelling and riffs (I mean, most of it is, but sometimes that's just what you need). Awesome analysis. Can't wait to check out some more.
Man, great video! Yes Chuck was showing us the ropes. I also love analyzing and scrutinizing. This is some a-tonal mastery here, I tell you. O, when they slow down to 100, the feel goes into a 16th note triplet feel, which is why we experience a minor tempo change of actually being sped up even tho the tempo just dropped (straight 16ths over 120 is slower than 16th triplets at 100bpm)! Fukn clever writing Bless you, man. Keep it up!
Great stuff! Crystal Mountain has been my go to finger training/warming song for about 25 years or so. And also one of my all time favourites from the first time I heard back when the album came out.
One of my favorite tracks from them ! It captured my attention instantly as a standout on that record amongst a bunch of other crushers on there . Misanthrope is another song I don't hear much spoken about enough .
The song that got me into Death. There was always an ‘aura’ around this song which drew me in. Glad I watched this video to learn just how great Chuck and the rest of the band really were. Thanks!
Love the deep dive into this iconic song. Thank you. I convinced a kid to play a whole album from death on rocksmith. He was blown away at how many tasty riffs he heard .. per song. He is now a fan. “Crazy awesome” if you wanna see. He’s played 3 albums so far.
Thank you very much. Very interesting. I'm big Death fan for it's complexity and compositions. It's nice to hear a deep analysis on the music and the lyrics to help us comprehend things. 👍
Interestingly, the lyrics “cross turned dagger” can be interpreted in 2 ways. The first is the way you mentioned, a cross (religious symbol) turning into a dagger (weapon) through hypocrisy. The other, using a hyphen in the words cross-turned, is if you imagine what a dagger looks like: it has a handle, crossguard, and the blade. The blade is usually longer than the handle, so if you turn the dagger with the blade pointing down, it resembles the shape of a cross. Never knew if that was Chuck’s genius intention or just coincidence but always found it super cool.
Great analysis! Our band recorded at Morrisound Studio. Tom and Jim had a lot of great stories about Chuck. Confirming his talent. Corpsegrinder told us that Death influenced him to take up the vocal style. Based on Chuck. There's a killer guitarist name Rick Renstrom who lives in this area and used to hang out with Chuck all the time. I guess they lived a few blocks from each other. He has a cool shred channel on RU-vid. They all think Chuck was an amazing human being. I remember when this album was released back when there were release dates. My friend (the drummer of our band) and I went to Best Buy, bought the album, went back to my apartment and listened to the whole thing. He became a much larger fan than I of the later catalog of Death and Control Denied. Chuck's music was so dense. To break it down like you did must have taken a long time. I really appreciate your effort, because I can enjoy it on different levels now. I hope that you live a long time. Keep playing and making videos! I subscribed and I'm looking forward to watching more.
Those harmonizing fifths are more typical of renaissance and earlier era monastic chanting than the classical canon. Rob Halford uses a similar device in Painkiller to heighten the sense of the sepulchral, ancient, almost holy in contrast to the brutality of the rest of the song. Cleansing fire, deadly wheels and all that
@@VARVIS_ Amazing video btw! The amount of detail and minutiae that you cover in your musical analysis videos is far beyond most of the similar content that’s on RU-vid. Keep it up. Subscribed and can’t wait to see more videos!
Great analysis of a great song. It's been forever etched in my brain since I first heard it in the early 2000s. If you play guitar and don't learn at least the "response" riff you're messing up.
Symbolic was the album that got me into Death and the only album I had by them for a little while. This song wasn't one of the standout tracks for me at first. I really liked the title track, 1000 eyes, and without judgment best. However, after 20 years and 1000s of spins, Crystal Mountain is definitely the standout track on the album by far. That piano cover of it is excellent too, very moving.
The Craziest thing about this Video to me is that I clicked on it because of the Time Stamp which said 34:17... Chuck Passed away at 34, and Released the Mantas Demo at 17... Long Live the King! And Even though when you click the video the Time Stamp is 34:16, 16 Was the Age he Formed and Started Writing The First Death Metal Ever in Mantas!
Bro a BRIEF analysis!? My work break can’t fit this whole thing in so ima save to watch later. Regardless of what I think by the end of this video 34 mins explaining this great song is commendable as fuhhh
I admire your dedication and knowledge, VARVIS. Cannot imagine how much time you spent making this. Classical music at the background was great. Kinda speecheless here.
Great channel and great song. Can’t wait. Only feedback is maybe they aren’t “a brief analysis” if they’re both deep dives and now clearing the 30 minute mark 😂 Not that I’m complaining! This is the way.
I'm a music lover , freelance hack musician, singer songwriter, and am always digging deep in the search for all kinds of bands that are relative, or belong to the family tree of blues, rock, hard rock, and metal. I can't say I love the band Death; but I will say, Schuldiner was a very special artist and musician. The entire Death Discography are key releases, and gamechangers, in the evolution of the entire metal spectrum.
I don't think any other band had as big of a lyrical impact on me. I was 14 when I discovered Death with the release of Individual Thought Patterns, 16 when Symbolic came out. And 20 when I travelled to the Netherlands to see them live at Dynamo. I somehow knew it had to be done, that it might be my only chance. RIP legend!
I always knew the song was more what you talked about, but I always imagined a fantasy story. One of some kind of priest ascending into a crystal mountain and using the dark magic within to take over his church and place himself as the new pontiff/prophet. Then twisting the church to be as he wants it. Now that I know for sure what it’s about I can safely steal that idea for on of my books.
Primarily commenting for the ALG… but I love this song. Like many other commented before, this was the first song I heard by Death, and it was seminal in my introduction to listening to and, later, playing death songs on guitar.
Pierwsza piosenka Death którą usłyszałem .W ogóle te rozciągnięte nuty gitary ( chyba a-mol lub e-mol ,czy jakiś powerchord powiązany z owymi ) finezyjny.
