"Costco" (aka "Gudetama & Lamb of God")

This summer has been oscillating between the two extremes of seemingly diametrically opposing forces, best summed up by the fucked-up yin-yang of Lamb of God (specifically "Memento Mori" from their 2020 album) and Gutetama (inspired by " In Spring, One Sleeps a Sleep that Knows No Dawn" and excerpted from the Official Theme Song.). I only became aware of the egg character after carrying around a mini-man purse (temporary replacement of the one currently enshrined in an exhibit at the UAF museum) which a student pointed out the character, which I had no idea of whatsoever. I guess just the image of a depressed egg was enough for me.

“Now, I’m fully awake… It’s time to start my next hibernation”

I juxtaposed the heavily edited and remixed passages from both songs against sketches done on site during a shopping excursion. The influence of Romero's 1978 classic zombie movie "Dawn of the Dead" is never far from thought while shambling around the shrink-wrapped palettes of hyper-consumerism dystopia. Now get the hell away from that last rotisserie chicken. 

 “Don’t waste this day… wake up wake up wake up”

As for the tunage, after many years of sporadic attempts at trying to listen to contemporary critical favorites, anything with death growls puts me off enough to not play it again. But for some reason Randy Blythe isn't off-putting, and the music fits hand-in-glove. When it comes to thrash metal I usually personally peak at two particular releases from Megadeth: 92's "Countdown to Extinction" & 94's "Youthanasia," both of which are a right and then a left to the ears with a sonically unmatched, technically flawless production quality welded to their definitive lineup (no thanks to Mustaine's massive ego) including Marty Friedman + David Ellefson. So with those as benchmarks it was a long time before finding a matching sound, but as of late Lamb of God mixes are on heavy rotation in the studio and office. In the middle of a ten-hour day I can pump out some art with this playing really loud in the classroom. And it fits my mood most days, these days.

"There is a vast amount of indisputably real and depressingly negative occurrences happening across the globe," vocalist Randy Blythe explained of the song. "…in this hyper-connected age with its 24/7 never-ending news cycle of atrocity, outrage and lurid click-bait headlines (not to mention ill-informed lunatics running amok and spreading misinformation and panic on social media), it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that life is still carrying on, and good things do in fact still happen."

"… I wrote 'Memento Mori' as a reminder to myself to not be consumed by the omnipresent electronic harbingers of doom that surround us — cellphones, computers and television screens. While these devices can be useful tools, and it is important to stay informed, it is equally important to remain engaged with the real, physical world we live in, not just digitally filtered representations of reality." - from Song Meanings