Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar

 

Note: This review contains spoilers for Metalocalypse and The Doomstar Requiem - A Klok Opera.

For about ten years, the [adult swim] series Metalocalypse, an animated series about the unrealistically popular death metal band Dethklok, never had a conclusion. Following the conclusion of Season 4, the show had an hour-long special, The Doomstar Requiem, which ended on a cliffhanger with the intention of an additional fifth season to finish it off. Long story short, this sadly never came to pass, leaving fans with no sense of closure. That is, until 2021 when the network greenlit a direct-to-video finale movie, Army of the Doomstar, which finally released in August 2023. As a fan of both Metalocalypse and Dethklok, the wait felt truly excruciating, but receiving closure made the incredible and emotional finale very much worth the wait.

Following the events of The Doomstar Requiem, Dethklok are finally reunited, though Nathan Explosion’s (Brendon Small) anxiety and post-traumatic stress puts their plans for more music on hold. Sometime later, when Nathan recovers, he is informed that the band are still responsible for creating the “Song of Salvation” that will prevent the destruction of the world through the Metalocalypse at the hands of Mr. Salacia (Mark Hamill) and the power of the Doomstar. With the pressure high on Nathan to write the song itself, the band travel to a secluded place where they can focus on training for their responsibility. However, not only do they have a betrayer in their midst, Nathan must overcome his greatest obstacle: his own ego.

Despite the long gap between installments, Army of the Doomstar feels consistent with the rest of Metalocalypse, both in its tone and storytelling. Just about every lingering mystery from the series is addressed and resolved, including Dethklok’s role in the prophecy, the nature of the Falconback Project (though not named), the identity of the betrayer, Mr. Salacia’s plans and just who (or what) he really is. Nathan Explosion is the central focus of the story, as him overcoming his ego and realizing his place in the world acts as the emotional core of the story, but the other band members get a good amount of screentime and character development themselves, especially William Murderface (Tommy Blacha). Some previously innocuous details also have their context fully realized, including the phrase “Go into the Water”, and, as part of Nathan’s development, the idea of “the fist vs the hand” is introduced and explored in a meaningful way.

Although Army of the Doomstar has a more serious tone befitting the latter half of the series, it never loses the series’ humorous touch. An early example occurs during a memorial service for Ishnifus Meaddle, where Dethklok are their usual disruptive selves and Pickles (Brendon Small) has to keep Murderface, Skwisgaar Skwigelf (Brendon Small) and Toki Wartooth (Tommy Blacha) in line as though he were their mother. At the same time, there’s a good amount of clever writing, like how the betrayer is identified and through a method subtly and organically introduced beforehand, and a willingness to explore the raw emotion of certain scenes at just the right time.

Everyone in Dethklok gets their time to shine; L-R: Nathan Explosion (Brendon Small),
Skwisgaar Skwigelf (Brendon Small), Toki Wartooth (Tommy Blacha),
Pickles (Brendon Small), William Murderface (Tommy Blacha)

There’s also the animation, which is easily the best in the entire series due to its noticeably higher budget. Characters and backgrounds may have an extra subtle layer of polish, but it never clashes with the rest of the series at any point. Rather than focus the budget entirely on visual fidelity, however, there’s smoother motion and more experimentation in the camera angles, plus some incredible visual metaphor that lets it stand out in a good way. It helps that there are still some charming flashes of the familiar cheap animation style and there’s no shortage of the signature gore without overdoing it.

Series fans will be happy to know that while the voice acting is in some ways improved through experience, the characters all sound like the ten-year gap in real life never happened (that is, there’s no jarring shift if you come in directly from The Doomstar Requiem). Granted, Mark Hamill’s roles sound a little older than before, but not distractingly so. As is the case with the series itself, some musicians also have minor voice roles, including Scott Ian form Anthrax, King Diamond, Thundercat and Amy Lee from Evanescence. Naturally, the music is also incredible thanks to Brendon Small’s musical prowess. Some songs featured in the film, including the “song of salvation”, also made their way onto the incredible and highly-anticipated Dethalbum IV, of which we happened to get an early copy (due to Mondo accidentally shipping out some copies ahead of time).

While I’m on the subject, I’d also like to mention that during the ten-year gap between The Doomstar Requiem and Army of the Doomstar, Brendon Small released a sequel album to his Galaktikon solo project, Brendon Small’s Galaktikon II: Become the Storm. What made this album notable is that drummer Gene Hoglan not only stated that it was a Dethklok album in all but name, as it even featured all of the real-life band members, Small himself also said, “If you want to listen to it just as a group of songs, listen to the CD order; if you want to decipher the story listen to the Vinyl song order.” During the initial release and after the reveal of the official lyrics a year later, many fans speculated that the album as presented in the vinyl order was actually a sneaky way of Small ending Metalocalypse during the period where he couldn’t use any of the names and a finale seemed highly unlikely. While there was no official word one way or the other, only statements from Small that seemed to imply as such, we listened to the album in this order again right after watching the finale and found that the lyrics lined up very closely with the events of the movie, with some differences. As such, it would be easy to conclude that Galaktikon II was, indeed, the finale (or at least a version of it) all along.

Still worth a listen either way.

After a decade of waiting, it feels great to say that Metalocalypse finally has the fitting and satisfying conclusion that it deserved. If you’re already a fan of the show, there’s absolutely no reason not to watch Army of the Doomstar. It’s impenetrable to everyone else, but even if the show itself weren’t a prerequisite, I would still highly recommend Metalocalypse as a whole. It’s easily one of [adult swim]’s best shows and well worth the investment.