1. Bullet
For My Valentine: With the help of my wife, I’ve been more exposed to this band
than ever before. Beforehand I’d only really heard a few tracks off of “Fever”,
and the title track of their second record “Scream.Aim.Fire.”. It was actually
the video for the latter that I was ever really willing to take a chance with
this band. At the time it came as a promise of a coming storm of another Thrash
Metal resurgence (at the time, I wasn’t aware there had been one in the nineties).
Along with Trivium’s “To the Rats”, “Scream.Aim.Fire” was something that really
got me excited. Something new in a field I thought had died out long ago. To my
recent surprise (as in earlier this week) I found out “Fever” actually came out
AFTER “S.A.F.”. To know this actually pissed me off pretty bad. To put out such
a heavy album and then to produce such a whiney piece of yak phlegm in a matter
of a couple years. And after streaming their newest album, “Temper Temper”, I
can only say they are following suite to a stardom of heresy. Nothing short of
audio vomit is this heinous atrocity. Why? Why turn a marvelous world upside
down?
2. Metallica:
As an avid Metallica fan and strong supporter for the album “St. Anger” (fuck
off!), it pains me to say that the nineties Metallica did bitched out…bad! I
was actually introduced to hard music by my step father with the black album,
and “Load”. It wasn’t until 2003/2004 when I started collecting their albums
back in high school. Mind you, by this time I was already getting passed the
initial Norwegian Black Metal bands and beyond the Florida and Swedish Death
Metal scenes. The first two Metallica albums I had were “St. Anger” and
“Kill’Em All” (before leaving Alaska), and then “Ride the Lightning”, “Master
of Puppets”, and “…And Justice For All” after seeing them with Godsmack in
Boise in 2004. So I had been moderately exposed to extreme metal by then, and
could judge good qualities. For whatever reason they decided making progressive
and intense metal just wasn’t their thing anymore, and making hard rock and
heavy blues were better for them. Whatever psychotic reason that may be, was
obviously a mistake. The few songs I can actually imagine being played live
from this era are “Fuel”, “King Nothing” and “Ain’t My Bitch”. There is a dire
place in my heart for the black album, so I don’t have too much negativity to
say about the album, as it was the first one I ever heard; and helps me get
through losing my step dad in 2007. But beyond that, it is totally a turn for
the worst for the band. As I do love this album, the only negative song I can speak
of is “Enter Sandman”; I would very much like to never, ever, ever listen to
that fucking song again. I do think after some family bonding, battling
alcoholism, losing another bassist, and Lars growing a pair (ha, yeah okay,
right!) and trying to relearn the drums, St. Anger was the start of a newer,
better Metallica not seen since the eighties. In no way, shape, or form is it
the same band or same awesome quality, but it is a lot better than the nineties
Metallica. And no, I have not listen to Lulu, nor do I want to. I don’t see it
as an official release. But whatever!
3. Dimmu
Borgir/Cradle of Filth: Both of these bands are almost identical in their
realms of music. Both started with roots laid in Black Metal. Both later on
took keen influence from comical dark ambiance heard in horror movies, both
have used orchestras, both have concept albums that tell a tale of a heretic
(within a year of each other), and both claim they are not Black Metal. THEY’RE
THE SAME GOD FORSAKEN BAND! Dimmu Borgir even took Cradle of Filth’s drummer
Nicholas Barker. Along with this, they both still drive me to buy new albums,
knowing I’m going to hate them. But eventually, I end up liking key notes in
several songs and they become some dirty guilty pleasure. Listening to them is
kind of like that video where the Metalhead ballerina listening to Brittany
Spears right before his friend walk in on him; I wouldn’t listen to it in front
of them. I’d rather sit in a corner by myself in self-hatred. Both are too
black metal for goths, and too goth for black metal! Yet somehow they both have
some utter bizarre cult following feeding them with endless funds to continue
to hire orchestras.
4. Atreyu:
I’ve never really been this bands biggest advocate to begin with, but I was
involved with a regional scene that was highly influenced by this band. Some
bands that had a lot of potential, but nothing really came out of the scene.
Reno had the closest success with one band almost signing to Relapse and
another who garnered regional headlines when an audience member was fatally
stabbed in their most pit. Awe! That somber early 2000’s post-hardcore scene
when everything was “Tough Guy Metal”, breakdowns, and yelling “RWA RWA, WAAAW,
YAAAAW!!! BLEED BITCH, OR LOVE ME AGAIN” (sic)! So not only were they not
really good to begin with, their first major release was somewhat noteworthy to
actually cheer about (I guess). So when they opted out of their hardcore roots
and somehow into a hard rock band, they chose to really embrace that “everybody
friendly” zone. They obviously still hold some kind of success to continue
making these albums, but I don’t know why. I very much remember the hardcore
kids giving the hard rock kids much grief, much in the same way metal elitist
do to EVERYONE. So why has this became a thing? I do not know (and it happened
with more than just Atreyu). I only envision either the hardcore kids saying
“This is some nice and mellow music, I can’t believe no one has ever done this
before”. I don’t feel there was any friendly alliance between the expected
scenes, yet eventually drew both in.
5. Korn:
Another one of those bands that just keep on screwing up. It really seems
they’ve got a formula of one album as their original aggressive selves, and
then one album that is an abomination of experimental rubbish. But like Dimmu
and Cradle, amidst the hail storm there always seems to be that one addictive
song that is meant to suck in everyone. And I think they are these tracks that
piss me off the most. An artist can come up with one song that is blazingly
amazing, but the rest of the album sucks. It’s like you’re saying “Look, here’s
this awesome song! Buy the whole album so you can see how big a fraud I am”.
And I know how arrogant Jonathan Davis is. He’s the 90’s version of Axel Rose,
but continues to put out atrocious release after atrocious release. And a
Dub-step album? Really? I was almost tempted to buy it, but had already wasted
my annual allowance of “chance of an appalling album” and ended up getting a
killer Warbringer album instead. Their “Korn III” album was the last thing I
took a gamble with. It sounds like a bunch of old dudes trying to play their
earlier music but forgot how to do that after repulsive record after repulsive
record. “Take a Look Through the Mirror” was the last album from them that I
had much respect for, as it was truly their last awesome aggressive album.
Thanks Davis for fraudulently destroying generations of youths and their taste
in good music. Why not take a look through the mirror and I’ll see you on the
other side when you remember who you are. Until then get a life, one that is a
little peachy, because I’m not being a clown. Your composures reek of stagnant
death like your overrated nu-metal band.
6. AFI:
I really don’t even know why I included them on this list. Not that I have a
problem with punk, but they’re not really punk. Well they use to be by my
understanding. Maybe they were forefathers to the modern emo scene due to their
change of form on “Sing the Sorrow”. I’d heard a little from “The Art of
Drowning” and I can say they use to be somewhat digestible. Though not really my
cup of tea. I mean, at the time “Sing the Sorrow” came out I wasn’t really fond
of any punk. That changed after a friend of mine in Nevada and my wife indulged
me. I started venturing into the realms of punk. When I think of punk now, I
think Discharge and Dead Kennedy’s. I’ve grown a fondness to Hardcore and Crust
Punk. So when I see these pop-punk motif bands, I cringe. Sum-41, Green Day,
The Offspring, all of them I detest. Maybe it’s that equivalent of some of
today’s metal bands that elitist have a problem with, but whatever! Things like
Black Veil Brides, The Darkness, I can see that as a…pop-metal? I can’t say there
isn’t reason for Avenge Sevenfold to be on here, but I think they clarified
their true allegiance on “Nightmare”. That will surely piss a lot of people off
but that’s my opinion. We’ll see what their next release will produce.
7. Slipknot:
Again, like Metallica, it truly pains me to place Slipknot here but one has to
face the facts. Were they aggressive on their first album? Yes! Did they become
overly successful on their second album? Yes! Did they change form on their
third album that was to draw in the masses, adding “diversity” to their music
for that appeal? YES! Did they eventually attend and accept a Grammy after
years of success, only after they claimed at the beginning they would never
attend nor accept a Grammy? You bet their asses they did. And for what song?
“Before I Forget”, their first real hard rock hit, where their masks were
absent in the video (yet their faces always just obscured from the camera).
This not being the only video to do this as they did the same on “Vermillion
Pt.1”. In this one, they presented their faces…as masks. And it’s not that big
of a deal anyways as more than half of this nonet has gone maskless in side
projects. They now even go maskless for publicity. Understand kindly, it was
Slipknot that got me into aggressive metal. My first real taste of anything
remotely thrashy, death-ish, any form of blast beats. It was seeing them on the
cover of Metal Edge magazine that led me to seeing advertisements for Six Feet
Under, Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth, Static-X, Slayer, Meshuggah, and
Symphony-X. With the power of Napster and eventually KaZaA, I tapped deep into
a world of malevolence, darkness, occultic music. To really come to the realization
that the band that really started it all, sold my kind out. There still is a
love-hate relationship for them, and the bands of that time. You cannot purge
nostalgia. Even their newest release “All Hope is Gone” hits a certain nerve
that flows adrenaline through my inner 14 year old. “Snuff” on the other hand
does strike another nerve entirely, one that truly pisses me off. It’s truly
the label of it, a Slipknot song. If it was labeled as a Stone Sour song, that
would be totally different. It would mean something more. But I can’t let that
down. Just like the “Load” and “ReLoad” album of Metallica. Not all of it is
garbage, and would be more tolerable if they had released them under a
different band…something, anything! Smokey Roadhouse would been way more
acceptable to release “Load” and “ReLoad” as, as opposed to Metallica. With the
power of a band name, comes great responsibility to steer forward.
8. Black
Tide: This is the band that elitist should totally slaughter, liberally! How
can you go from total skater-punk thrash metalers on your debut album, climbing
to instant success, and then you flip to fad driven Metalcore that sounds more
like post hardcore. They literally did Bullet For My Valentine in reverse (in
regards to their second and first albums). Gabriel Garcia (vocalist, guitarist)
went from a grungy 80’s child to a 2000’s over-gaged-ear-hockey-puck hipster
wannabe. I mean how does someone literally flip so quickly other than to ride
the last wagon of the final phase of Metalcore? To me he is the Justin Bieber
of the Metalcore scene. I scoff at this abomination.
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