California’s Ghoul is a metal outfit I’m starting to admire for two reasons. First off, their music offers a pretty nice blend of death metal and thrash metal. Nice! But what’s also interesting about this group is that they manage to reinforce just about every metal stereotype until their music has this slightly amusing, slightly self-aware schtick to it.

Good news: We don’t need to take everything seriously all the time.

I’m sure these guys enjoy some Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, and Anthrax, but Ghoul seems equally influenced by stuff like Gwar and comic books, too.

The video above is for the track “Metallicus Ex Mortis,” which comes of the band’s latest album, Transmission Zero. Look for it on Tankcrimes.