Black metal is the least understood genre of the whole metal oeuvre, as most people figure KISS are the figureheads of it because of the whole face paint thing. Therefore it rarely gets treatment that's informed enough to make a good mockery for those of us who get it. Finnish cough drop brand Zyx released a new commercial recently, as featured on Metal Injection, which is closer to reality than most.
An obviously black metal trio (a genre much more iconic in Finland and Norway than in North America) is filming a video in the woods, wearing face paint and surrounded by torches, singing in what we can only presume is Finnish. The joke becomes that the death growls employed by the vocalist and guitarist leaves his throat rather raw. He pops a Zyx and surprisingly finds his voice to be rather operatic, in the style of a band like Nightwish or similar (again, more popular in that part of the world).
It's worth a chuckle. Certainly better than the joke of a KFC commercial that featured a faux black metal band performing for a minute, with the vocalist blowing fire throughout. Although black metal groups are known to partake in such shenanigans, the resulting joke that he found KFC's new sandwich too spicy is lame. The fact that he speaks English in an American accent is lower than low (although we give kudos for the band name "Hellvetica").
Zyx can't touch the excellent commercial released by FedEx last year—although this one kind of tied black metal and Slipknot-style masks into one package—that featured an angry manager trying to explain how the band carrying golf clubs in public hurts its image. One of our favorite commercials of all time, and not just from a metal perspective.
