Iron Maiden, "Hallowed Be Thy Name"

Progressive Lounge Metal

A friend recently reminded me of Claudine Longet, who was one of those great starlets from those 60's movies, utterly forgettable, and utterly replaceable. I suppose today she'd be like a Hillary Duff or a Lindsay Lohan. That whole lounge era is sadly gone forever. The revival was crap, and we all know it. Those original songs and movies still maintain their potency, though. All you have to do is listen to Claudine sing "Love Is Blue" and you instantly conjure up Dean Martin picking up some bird in a futuristic ski lodge, or a cream pie fight that gets interrupted by the appearance of inexplicable bubbles and a wild animal. What I'd give for Hillary's next tweenie trap to end with an absurdist romp like that.

One thread of musical thought that has always managed to survive in some form is progressive metal. There's always been a thousand rotten purveyors of asymmetrical time signatures and mythical lyrics for every Iron Maiden, and today is no different. Tool have been holding down the fort nicely, and then Coheed and Cambria came along. They manage to answer the question everyone was asking after OK GO's incredible debut, "What if their second album was prog?" Check out "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth", and if they lose you somewhere in the middle, wait for the end, which is the best thing you'll hear today.

Can you guess which one is Claudine?