So the late Nineties/early Noughties Metal was actually in a fairly healthy commercial state, but creatively it was fucked - over run by baggy jeans, turn tables, white boys trying to rap and a clown in a red baseball cap or Marilyn Manson.
I know. I had a lot of the records as I was DJing at the time.
Like all genres Nu Metal wasn't bad when it first surfaced and a lot of the bands in the first wave or two were quite good, but by the time the genre was bloated and rotting in the harsh light of day most people longed for a bit of musical ability, some solos and a bit of passion as opposed to having Ben fucking Stiller guest on your album to give your self a back slapping celebrity endorsement.
Out of this frustration saw the resurgence of Thrash orientated bands; only because we live in a post modern world that has to put a label on everything (God forbid we couldn't just called it 'Metal'), this new take on a genre whose leading lights still had credence even before the Big Four Cash Grab, Metalcore was born.
Metalcore was given the name because, despite featuring dual guitar harmonies, solos, thrash fast riffing, gruff vocals, it also had incorporated elements of the punk and hardcore scenes such as breakdowns, deep bass parts, empowering lyrics etc so it was essentially a nice media friendly weaving of two Genres 'Heavy Metal' and 'Hardcore'…
Truthfully a lot of the originators of this genre actually had more in common with the Gothenburg Sound that was created by the likes of At The Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity in the preceding decade and the early bands pinned with this tag include forerunners Killswitch Engage, Unearth, All Shall Perish, Walls Of Jericho, Shadows Fall, As I Lay Dying, Lamb Of God, All That Remains, Trivium, God Forbid, Chimaira and Avenged Sevenfold.
Frankly a veritable who's who of my record record collection for the past few years (some noticeable omissions included).
But as with Hair Metal, Thrash, Nu Metal, Emo before them nothing lasts forever and as the whole thing begins (well I say begins… truth is it started a fair while ago) to whiff like Big Foot's dick and a number of key releases have come in the last year I thought I would take a look at the past and present and see if I can still find a pulse.
Before I do I want to cut a few off the list:
Lamb of God - never really a metal core band, definitely aren't now, just lazy journalism. They are a Slayer/Pantera hybrid and have been ever since As The Palaces Burn was released back in 2003.
Walls Of Jericho are a great band, more like a female fronted Slayer. I may talk about them another time as at the moment they are on time out due to Candace Kucsulain having given birth to a baby girl in August 2011.
Avenged Sevenfold - began life as the Orange County Killswitch but had to take a directional swerve when M Night Shadows blew out his voice and could no longer scream and growl Death Metal stylee. Whatever, they were shit then and somehow more shit now, apart from that Natural Born Killer song from Nightmares. Which is a shame because his voice isn't bad now and I like the song he did on the first Slash solo album…
Trivium…. Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahem, moving on….
So that's the the two I can't be fagged to talk about off the list as well as one of my favourite metal acts of recent years and Walls of Jericho… (I say recent I pretty much mean the last nine) so to the remnants.
I should point out that I didn't go out of my way to find the most identikit band photos... it's just a metal thing these days...
Killswitch Engage
KsE started out of the blocks incredibly well with their untitled album (the debut, the good one, not the shit boring one they released last time out) and followed that swiftly with 2003 genre defining Alive or Just Breathing? This period in my opinion represents the best of the bands output, in singer Jessie Leech they had a vocalist who could growl like a demon possessed and sing like an Angel, before it became the norm to jam a saccharine sweet chorus into every bloody song this was like the spirit of Gothenburg and the Bay Area wrapped up in a fresh post modern sound; produced perfectly it was a boot in the face that people who had been waiting for such things since Anselmo hollered 'FUCKING HOSTILE!!!" in your ear way back 11 years earlier.
After that Jessie left due to numerous reasons and he was replaced with HoJo, The Howard Jones of Blood Has Been Shed, and they recorded the genre busting End Of Heartache album which smashed down the doors to the Metal mainstream at the time and catapulted them into the big time shining a light on Metalcore.
Now since then, followers of this blog will know I have taken almost every opportunity I can to put the boot in to KsE as they became more bloated (to the point of diabetes eh HoJo?), more stupid (lose that cape Adam) and just fucking boring and formulaic. Whilst record sales haven't dwindled general interest and respect has, but now with the return of Jessie this year, the once kings of Metalcore could get back to their roots and are embarking on a State side tour playing AOJB in its entirety. Having seen them this year at Download for the first time with Leech I have to say I am jealous of our brethren over the pond.
There is hope yet for KsE in my opinion.
Unearth
Unearth have always had their roots more in the hardcore sound than the Death Metal leanings of their peers. They like most started out with a brutal sounding debut (The Stings of Consciousness) but it wasn't until the release of their sophomore album The Oncoming Storm that they made people really sit up and pay attention. Uncompromisingly heavy, almost devoid of clean vocals and dripping with luscious guitar parts, it proved that despite the mauling Metal had taken previously, it could still be intricate, classy and still get you diving in the pit.
They followed this up with two solid albums in III: The Eyes Of Fire and The March which trod the same path in a very palatable way, but never quite recaptured that feeling and left you wanting them to push themselves further.
Well last year I got what I wanted and the wheels came off. The Darkness In The Light I talked about at the time, so I won't go on and on, but part of why I loved Unearth was because they didn't weld a pop chorus to every (or any) song. Like Randy Blythe, Trevor Philips didn't sing.
Last years release saw clean singing all over the new album and I have to say it was a shock and not a pleasant one. I have struggled to listen to them since to be honest and I know that others have struggled with this change.
Maybe they'll come good, but at the moment it smacks of desperation.
God Forbid
God Forbid were a little different and in Gone Forever and Constitution of Treason released some of my favourite albums around the year I was made redundant (2005). I remember temping for DEFRA around my birthday and wondering round the grounds listening to these albums and As I Lay Dying's Shadows Are Security (more on them later)
Since then they have been at war with themselves with Doc Coyle the elder brother stating that they needed to get serious or he would be off and following the lack lustre follow up Lifesblood it seemed that time was up for some.
At this time I saw them in Bristol supporting fading Nu Metal stars Ill Nino and was approached by his brother Dallas Coyle holding a sign up asking for coke, shortly after he left the band and was replaced by Kris Norris of Darkest Hour and then some dude called Mick Wicklund.
For me the support gig for Ill Nino was appropriate as, like them, God Forbid have failed to kick on, last years Equilibrium passed by in a haze of indifference, and they seem to fade a little more with each passing release. They keep popping up on tours in America with many of the usual suspects on this entry, but these days I'm hardly beating down the door to listen to anything new they produce.
Which is a shame.
Chimaira
It seems a little unfair to lump Chimaira in with Metalcore as they have always been a more pure Metal band like Lamb of God. Their Pass Out Of Existence debut was flavoured with Nu Metal influences, but by the time they stripped down to release the incredible Impossibility of Reason album they were lean and mean and created a huge wave on Roadrunner with the Down Again single.
As with all things they seemed primed for success but if you get the chance to see their DVD The Dehumanizing Process the band effectively fell apart over this album tour and the tour for the subsequent self titled album and were dropped by Roadrunner (quel surprise) and have spent the past couple of years limping on and constantly shedding band members right up until 2011 when they release the surprisingly good Age Of Hell album (free to UK Metal Hammer readers), but this comeback seems short lived as two more band members have jumped ship since then and it seems that even the most hardcore Chimaira fan is probably calling time.
As I Lay Dying
As I mentioned earlier in 2006 AILD release their 3rd album Shadows Are Security. Having seen them supporting my Alaskan favourites 36 Crazyfists on their Snowcapped Romance tour (not to mention seeing a pre-EP release Bullet For My Valentine open) I was moved enough to buy their Frail Words Collapse album.
They were by far one of the heaviest bands of their collective - low on sung melodies but high on Maiden influenced dual guitar harmonies. However after breaking big(ish) with Shadows… the band released An Ocean Between Us - this album is considered their best and saw them collect several accolades including a Grammy nomination, but saw the ratio of clean to gruff vocals creep up.
This is the problem for me, this wasn't too bad on Oceans, but the increase in the two follow ups - 2009's The Powerless Rise and this years Awakened means suffering more of Josh Gilbert's clean vocals and unlike Clint Norris before him, I don't really like them… they are a bit whiny and irritating and whereas they used to be used sparingly, now they are almost Killswitch predictable. Don't get me wrong Awakened is a heavy album and by no means close to the worst I have heard this year, but I am finding myself enjoying Tim Lambesis' comedy side project Austrian Death Machine more these days.
Shadows Fall
Right around the halcyon time of the mid-Noughties Metalcore was hitting it's stride Shadows Fall released one of the best Metalcore albums the genre has produced in The War Within. Having ditched Phil Labonte in favour of Brian Fair (he of the massively long dreadlocks) on vocals after artistic differences following the their debut Sombre Eyes To The Sky, the band established themselves as a rising force recording Of One Blood and the momentum gaining follow up The Art Of Balance.
The War Within cracked the top 20 of the Billboard Chart and topped number one on the Top Independent Chart and even got a slot on Guitar Hero II causing some to tip the Shads as the next successor to the likes of Metallica, however the next two albums (Threads of Life and Retribution) saw them lose their direction a little as the band seemed unsure whether to go for the commercial bucks or stay true to their roots and the results was a listenable, but unremarkable mish mash and it looked like they too may end up another casualty on the metalcore scrap heap.
Fortunately this year saw the release of their latest record Fire From The Sky. Reunited with old pal and cape wearing idiot savant Adam D of Killswitch behind the desk for the first time since Sombre Eyes… this record is a wake up call to all who had written them off.
Back to their melodic thrash best, heavy and uplifting and with a production crisper than a new pair of ironed boxer shorts, Fire… has reignited.
All That Remains
So having been removed from Shadows Fall, ex military man and gun loving NRA nut Phil Labonte turned his attention to making his imagined side project a reality with All That Remains. Having always appreciated his voice more than Fair's it was no surprise that I loved All That Remains and their debut Behind Silence & Solitude, like most of the genres debuts is nigh on death metal raw.
Following a few line up shifts the band released it's sophomore album This Darkened Heart for Prosthetic Records.
In comparison to it's predecessor this is a cast iron classic, again produced by friend Adam D this is as pure metal core as you can get, Labonte's bark broken up by some well timed and flavoured clean vocals without being indulgent.
Sure enough as the genre gained in popularity so the pressures on the band to perform commercially escalated and the resultant album was 2006's Fall Of Ideas, still clinging onto enough credibility in the underground this album Still Remains (oof - where are they now?) the fans classic choice. Although not as good in my opinion as TDH it features several alternative radio friendly hits that propelled them into the same league as Shadows and Killswitch.
My problem with All That Remains from this point is that the clean vocals began to appear more and more and have clearly been tweaked in the studio. Whilst this is no surprise in this day and age, one of the main reasons I love the music I do is that you can go see them live and raw.
It seems that raw is an accurate way to describe Labonte's live vocals and debate rages online as to whether he can actually deliver the clean goods live.
However buoyed by the success of Fall, ATR followed this up with 2008's Overcome and 2010's For We Are Many which have only seen the band move further away from their roots and incorporate more clean singing and less thrash orientated material. Although for the record I enjoy both of these records, putting them on back to back with This Darkened Heart show cases how far the band have gone in the route of putting their albums together in the studio.
Certainly this has seen record sales rise steadily, but when you start to sound produced to the point of Linkin Park you are gonna have to take some stick.
Pro-Tools & Autotune
An album you cannot sing...
Whilst these records have proved successful we stand poised for the release of A War You Cannot Win in two weeks time.
I fear this is probably the last time I will describe ATR as a metal core band. The new single that preceded the album Stand Up is a dreadful poppy, hard rock, entirely clean sung piece of smalchy shit that has been massively, massively studio engineered, with vocals that constantly wobble about as the pitch correction desperately tries to match the music and dipshit, chest beating lyrics.
If this wasn't bad enough, Labonte has repeatedly come out in the press lately spouting bollocks about liberals and advocating gun ownership, big government, becoming a partner in a gunshop, posing with assault rifes and falling out with Rent-A-Commie Tom Morello. Not to mention that the album cover is a piss poor rip off of IronMaiden's A Matter Of Life And Death logo only with assault rifles, with silencers.
In an online interview Phil explained how he no problems offending his fans by speaking his mind.
Well judging by the comments appearing online, a large portion of his fan base has no problems offending him as the backlash over the frankly dreadful Stand Up has seen many claiming to have finished with the band.
Well, I've heard the new album and frankly the clean vocals are processed beyond shit. The album has some great heavy moments (Stand Up notwithstanding) but every fucking song that quivering, digital, annoying clean vocal comes in and it sounds like I am listening to some bullshit pop boy band. In fact listening to it as I write this Asking Too Much makes Stand Up seem like a great track, I mean how fucking far off the note do you have to be for the pitch correction to be so dominant in the weak mix? Not to mention at one point it actually breaks down and Phil sings comfortable in his register in a low voice and you hear his real voice... it sounds fine, then the chorus kicks back in and the whole fucking Autotune multi-layer kicks back in and you could be listening to a different guy.
The whole thing smacks of Pro-Tools and Autotune - there is no way this will ever come over well live. As far as 'music' goes this is the worst thing I have suffered in 2012 and it comes from one of my favourite bands of the last couple of years.
I have to say Phil you should rename your band to to Autotuned Remainstream because you make the dude from As I Lay Dying seem like a pleasure to listen to on this release.
Absolutely dreadful.
Ultimately Metalcore, like Nu Metal, Grunge, Thrash etc before it is clinging onto life itself by finger tips… the fact is that music seems to come in waves, either from bands in the same scene trying to out do each other, record companies wanting their own piece of a fad or bandwagon jumping.
Some of the bands I have listed here have been great and could be again, some are on a downwards trajectory and some will fade from existence and some simply aren't the same bands anymore.
I understand that stagnation equals death - I reviewed the new Neurosis album for The Sleeping Shaman recently so I get that some bands can't or won't stand still and I don't expect them to still be the same, but taking a band like Lamb of God who have not compromised in what they do and are selling in numbers that some of the bands mentioned can only dream of, making some of the best music they have made in their career, it makes some of the decisions made by other bands mentioned here seem a desperate attempt to play the game.
And at least Randy Blythe admits he can't sing.
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