Sick and Fucking Tired....
After reading a recent As I Lay Dying review here on the second greatest website in the universe, I had an epiphany. You see Farlus and so many of my metalhead brethren say “fuck metalcore”. They are sick and tired of the bad hair and stupid clothes and sissy emo vocals. They actually have the nerve to propose that nu-metal wasn’t so bad after all. Bah, I say. That is a bunch of crap. Fresh in my memory is the blight that was nu-metal and the horrors that it brought to the metal scene. I would like to take a look at metalcore and how it stacks up to the pile of festering shit that was most nu-metal and show how things were at least as shitty back then as they are now.
The primary problem one must consider is that whatever type of metal is popular tends to turn to shit in just a few short years. Most of the people I knew who condemned nu-metal with an iron fist had been fans in the early years of the nu-metal plague. After all, this hot new type of music was different, and in the beginning many of these bands went out with Pantera, White Zombie and the other bands that we all held so close to our blackened metal hearts. While thrash lovers everywhere turned over in their graves, Sepultura helped breed the nu-metal sound with the release of Roots. I thought Roots was a super album and in the early days I enjoyed the Deftones, Coal Chamber, Soulfly, Snot and a handful of other nu-metal bands.
Then…IT HAPPENED.
The blood sucking labels noticed that these bands were selling records, selling tickets and selling merch. Every time the labels embrace the hot new thing the mediocre half assed imitations come crawling out of the gutter with their hands out. They sign some horrible contract and then help pollute the scene with sub-standard garbage. Overnight there were more nu-metal bands than you could shake a stick at, and 90% or more of them were fucking terrible. Hell, hardly anyone remembers even half of them anymore. I look at samplers I got at shows and festivals from that time period and half of the bands I can’t even remember.
As time went on and the nu-metal trend died it was obviously decided that something else must be embraced. Of course, we would like it to be thrash, or wouldn’t it be downright hilarious if you went to the mall and everyone was suddenly into grindcore? All of the sudden 13 and 14 year old kids everywhere would be wearing Napalm Death shirts and acting like they had been fans since they were 5. Never mind that I was listening to Napalm Death a couple of years before they were born. Rather than embracing grindcore, the style that everyone went for was metalcore. Do you know what our brother Farlus has to say to that? Fuck METALCORE! The problem is that Farlus is only half right.
I can remember a friend of mine telling me that he got a CD off of Ebay. It was Day of Reckoning by Diecast. There had been a few bands that people called metalcore that I had listened to over the years. I thought then, and still think now, that metalcore is a great concept. You take all of the skill and complexity of metal and combine it with the fan favorite hardcore beatdown, add a healthy dose of double kicks and viola – you have a great band. Whether it was the pioneers of metalcore like Ringworm, Coalesce or even Biohazard, or the middle age of metalcore with bands like All Out War, early Diecast or Hatebreed, you had bands that played great metal, yet knew when it was time to bring the chug. Today is no different. There is a genre worth of great metalcore bands just waiting to smash you in the teeth with their metal infused brand of hardcore beatdown.
You see, the problem isn’t with the concept of metalcore. I could point out dozens of great metalcore bands. Full Blown Chaos, Sworn Enemy, Cataract, Maroon, Heaven Shall Burn, The Classic Struggle, and many more are crushing the emocore sissies before their metal infused onslaught. What is unfortunate is that there is a legion of hangers-on that need beaten with hammers so that they cannot ruin metalcore any further. Farlus mentioned bands like 18 Visions and Every Time I Die. These along with bands like A Bullet For My Valentine, Evergreen Terrace and Norma Jean are really the diarrhea icing on a cake made of shit. These and their legion of clones are the bands that are responsible for giving everyone the impression that the majority of metalcore bands and metalcore fans wear girls jeans, makeup and have stupid haircuts. These are the bands with the emo vocals and songs that supposedly are designed to attract women, yet just like with any other type of metal the primary audience is still dudes. I guess that the dudes are mostly dressing like chicks so maybe the audience is more attractive to the band than I am giving them credit for.
Look at the bands I offered as examples of good metalcore bands. None of them have that stupid fucking comb-over hair cut, nor do they wear eye liner or girl’s jeans. Some of them have bad hair but it is just bad, not emo. Most of the guys in these bands are the good old-fashioned ugly metal and hardcore dudes that represent the majority of us that enjoy all that is metal. You see plenty of the kids that look like the sissy bands at every type of show however. If you ask these kids why they dress like a woman they will tell you it is to attract girls. Call me crazy but I don’t see how that theory works. Girls would likely want guys that look like guys, or an actual girl, but probably not a guy that looks like a girl. The stupid comb-over is what prevails the most however, and even at tough guy hardcore shows you see guys that look like every other hardcore kid, yet they have that stupid fucking hair cut. If you say you are not a whiny emo sissy then wash that shit off your face, cut your hair and buy a pair of combat boots and some camo pants and get with the fucking program. That shit all takes too much time. That’s time you could be using to drink beer and listen to metal. Oh what’s that? You don’t drink because you are straight edge? Fine, that is more time that you could be using to listen to metal, hardcore or metalcore and punch the ones still wearing that stupid shit in their stupid haircut, eye-linered heads.
If you cannot get with the program, then please pack your shit and head on over to the emo scene where you and a legion of other misguided youth can wear makeup and cry if you somehow think that will get you chicks. Oh, and please take all of the shitty bands like 18 Visions with you. No one likes you, your music or the bullshit reasons you give for looking half retarded. I mean seriously, your hair looks like you should be fans of Flock of Seagulls.
What is probably the saddest part of all is that while these stupid fucking emo-infused bands may have made most of us take notice and planted the seed that would become a hatred for metalcore, they are not the bands that really killed the genre. These bands are easy to hate. We all have bands that are popular that we hate. It is the legion of no name untalented crap that the labels have snatched up and put out just to make sure they get in on the craze before it is over. These shitty bands are the ones that will get ignored, and whether they wear girl’s jeans or not, they are getting lumped into the steaming pile of shitty metalcore bands. Meanwhile Full Blown Chaos just put out one of the heaviest metalcore albums of all time! Remember folks, metalcore by definition is a blend of metal and hardcore, not emo.
I would like to invite all of the good old fashioned metal and hardcore kids everywhere to step up and help these misguided souls. Encourage them to cut their hair, wash off the make up and find some pants that fit. If that doesn’t work then try smacking them around a bit and see if you can’t knock some sense into them. If they cannot be convinced, then by all means encourage them to swallow a bullet. No one would really want to live in that kind of condition for long. Hopefully soon it will all pass and the metalcore craze will die out. When it does there will still be a host of great metalcore bands that are honest representations of the style ready to pummel crowds everywhere. Still think nu-metal wasn’t so bad? Remember kids, nu-metal created Fred Durst from its AIDS infected colon. You don’t really want that fucking asshole back do you?
Jason “CJSIXER” Wenderoth | 08/04/2006