Here is a new video and song that I wager few R&T readers know about: Sebastian Bach’s “Kicking and Screaming,” from his recently-released album of the same name.

My taste for this kind of music, 1980s-inspired metal (hair metal, somewhere between lighter pop metal and harder death metal), has hardly waned in the 25+ years since this genre became popular. Tunes like these are heavy on chunky riffs, melodic high-pitched scream-singing, existential male combativeness, bombast, and stadium-worthy choruses ready-made for thousands (of mostly guys) to chant while pumping fists in the air. That is a long way of saying that I accept that this music is not for everyone. But I continue to find it utterly crankable, energizing, and head-clearing. And I am here to tell you that Bach’s new album is refreshingly strong — playing, songwriting, singing. Should you consent to Kicking and Screaming, you’re going to be strapped to the hard rock wheel and taken across the metal landscape with only divebombing guitar solos and Bach’s indulgent sky-high peals to guide you through the shadows of midlife male restlessness.

The video above, for the title track, positions the fan in an interesting way that bears some affinities to what I have found useful in my own theological life and what I try to help my students do in theirs, especially my students in their thirties and older. It has to do with inhabiting two modes of experience at the same time.

In the “Kicking and Screaming” video, Bach is inhabiting two worlds at once.

On the one hand, he is taking pride in his craft and putting his heart into what he loves. At 2:36 it looks like he is going to break open from yelling that chorus at the camera. And all those shadow punches and that hurly-dancing seem like honest surrenders to some worthy fury he is channeling.

On the other hand, notice how often he is smirking, smiling, or making funny faces – starting with the comic

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