Consumed - Heavy Metal Winner

For a good chunk of you, this song is going to bring back some very specific memories. Hitting the Opensezmee rail in School II. Collecting the secret tape in Philadelphia. Crashing through glass in the Hanger in Mullet Falls, Montana. I could go on and on about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 having the best soundtrack in video game history, with its iconic blend of 90s and early 00s punk and hip hop. I get paid by the word, however, and I don’t want my boss to starve to death. 

For those of you out of the loop, let me get you filled in on Consumed with a few less obscure references. Formed in Nottingham, England in 1992, they were about as skate punk as skate punk gets. After signing with Fat Wreck Chords, they toured just about every surf/skate festival held at the back end of the 90s. They epitomise that snappy, earworm sound that skate punk does so well, which makes it all the stranger that they started their musical journey as a death metal band named Desecrator. We’ve all got to start somewhere, right? And it is fun to imagine them opening a set with any song from their one release to a bunch of very confused teenagers in Vans shoes. 

Yes, it is a short and sweet trip down memory lane, but Heavy Metal Winner is two and a half minutes of skate punk that will have you itching to dust off the board and grind down the nearest stair rail into a gnarly kickflip. Here at Rock Song of the Week, we can’t medically condone that decision for anyone over the age of thirty, however. Just thinking about it has shattered my spine into a million pieces.