It's that time again. It's the return of the Awfsome, that liminal space between awesome and awful, where good and bad taste meet. Last year we looked at the awfsome ad campaign, The Battle for Milkquarious. Today, we bring to you a gnarly corner of the internet few have dared to go: Heavy Metal Cumbia Mashups. On the surface, this seems pretty straight forward. Heavy metal bands that play cumbia-inspired jams, right? Alas, that would just be awesome. We are interested in the awfsome, those few excruciatingly stupid digital gems that you will sit through, just to see how it all pans out. Such is the case with heavy metal cumbia mashups.

Somewhere a throng of intrepid video editors have taken heavy metal performances and lined them up with their favorite cumbia tunes. Most of these don't make any sense. Accordion or trumpet lines will be matched up with a guitar solo, while Axl Rose or Bruce Dickinson sort of “croon” with the lyrics. Yeah, bizarre. They're pretty terrible. But kinda great. They're awful and awesome. They're awfsome.

But you be the judge, are these vids awesome, awful, or awfsome? Let us know after the jump.

(This stuff is not technically NSFW, but getting caught watching a **Spoiler Alert** Slipknot video at work [or anywhere] may permanently lose you some street cred)

Totally not metal, but a pretty good mashup.

Real heavy Metal cumbia (sort of)

This is one is particularly weird. So that's Gael Garcia Bernal singing a Cheap Trick's “I Want You To Want Me,” paired up with Iron Maiden. Why not Cheap Trick? Hmmm.

This is a proper metal mashup. Video editors, take some notes:

Cumbia Radiohead? In theory yes, in practice (which they seem to be seriously lacking), no.

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