Imagine a world where all it takes is the influence of a popular music band to throw society off its axis. A world that clings so much onto this one band's lifestyle that they'll go to any length and suffer any harm just to get a chance to be close to them and emulate their heroes. Now imagine that said band just happens to be a harder-than-hard death metal band called Deathklok and that it's made-up of a bunch of anti-social, dysfunctional and none-too-smart dullards.

That's the premise behind co-creators Tommy Blacha and Brendon Small's animated show which has been airing on the Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" block of shows for the past year or so. Like some of its brethren, Metalocalypse episodes generally only runs eleven-minutes but despite the shorter running time you're almost guaranteed to see a slew of morbid humour, outrageous violence, music video breaks, and lots of references for long-time metal fans (such as a fast food restaurant being called "Dimmu Burger" and the fact the band plays a concert off the coast of "Danzig").

What also keeps the show going on its over-the-top vibe is the personalities of the members of Dethklok. There's Nathan Explosion, the deep throated singer with self esteem issues; drummer Pickles who is constantly drunk and once played in a hair metal band called Snakes 'N' Barrels, the overly violent and self loathing bassist William Murderface, and the twin guitar attack of the child-like Toki Wartooth and Swedish guitar wizard Swizgaar Swigelf. As if their constant bickering, quest to be the most "Brutal" band around, and outright lack of brains wasn't enough we also get such amusing side characters as Dr. Rockso, the rock 'n' roll clown ("I took cocaine!").

With episode titles that all contain either the word "Deth" or "Klok", the first twenty episodes from the shows inaugural season contained in this DVD set usually manage to hit the mark with a mix of satirical jabs and bloody mayhem. The basic set-up of the show has Dethklok being thrust into various situations while a secret Government task force is trying their best to stop the band from outright destroying society. Even such little things as Murderface's birthday ("Happy Dethday") manages to cause all sorts of havoc around the globe.

Basically our band of "brutal" dullards stumble their way through all sorts of situations oftentimes causing more mayhem than you'd think a bunch of clueless musicians could manage. There's also gobs of self-effacing humour and a slew of songs (co-written by Blacha and Small with such titles like "Briefcase Full of Guts" and "Thunderhorse") that could kick the arse of almost any real metal band out there - in fact, the songs are so well done that even the wheelchair bound girl's song from the "Dethkids" episode is great.

That's not to say all the episodes here work for their entire running time as "Religionklok", where Murderface discovers he needs religion in his life to feel whole, never really kids the right notes and "Girlfriendklok", which sees Nathan getting a controlling girlfriend, never feels like it belong amongst the other episodes. For the most part, though, almost every show here offers up something that will either crack you up, make you bang your head, or just be utterly grossed out (check out the ending of "Dethkids" for proof of this). So, suffice it to say, this isn't a show for the easily offended or someone who'd rather spend a quiet afternoon cleaning their house to the strains of whatever crappy Big And Rich country music song that happens to be on the radio.

The show's animated style is pretty simple in its execution sporting bold outlines and backgrounds that aren't overly complex. It's not amazing, but it suits the show well. It also gets quite the boost from the voice cast as Blacha and Small share duties voicing "Deathklok" and bring each character their own distinct personallity. On top of that there's also cameo apperances by Mark Hammill, James Hetfield (Metallica), and Operatic metal singer King Diamond - those most are hard to pick out, to be honest.

Metalocalypse is an incredibly funny and entertaining animated show and probably one of the most daring things on Adult Swim. While watching it I was reminded of another show that was supposed to air on the network (Korgoth of Barbaria), but that show never did get past the pilot stage. So sit back and enjoy these first twenty episodes and check out the newly airing season two to see where they go with the show's mild cliffhanger season finale. (Chris Hartley, 11/4/07)

Created By: Tommy Blacha, Brendon Small.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Surprisingly presented widescreen, Metalocalypse looks perfectly fine on DVD and is sharp enough despite having a few jagged lines throughout. It doesn't suffer from the usually "ghosts" most animated fare does on disc though, so that's a good thing.

Extras: Most Adul Swim volumes contain a pretty decent batch of special features so it's almost paining to proclaim that this is probably the weakest set I've seen from them in a little while.

All of the extras here are hidden on the front menu as Easter Eggs, but they're easy enough to find. The first disc mostly contains extended and deleted material from the episodes, most of which go on much longer than they should making the joke within ineffective. The best two scenes here are Swizgar's outtakes from the "Thunderhorse" video and Murderface playing the Paperboy-like video game "Wheelchair Bound". The second disc's extras are mostly set-up as band interview segments where there's a topic displayed and the group talks about it in their dressing room. There's also a extended tour introduction from the "Mordland" episode as well as a montage taken from all the episodes in this set.

It's a pretty dull batch of stuff and doesn't even offer extra value for big fans of the show - which I consider myself to be.