So now that easycore is officially the heaviest subgenre of tr00 heavy metal, it goes without saying that it will further split into further subgenres. Without such subdivisions we wouldn't be able to bicker and argue about which one is more obscure and thus "better" than the others. Well after those sell-outs A Day To Remember decided to quit making good music, some Eurotrash took over:
No, that isn't Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! that is Abandoned By Bears' "Empty Bottles, Lost Battles." First thing to notice (aside from the still thumbnail) is that all the members like to wear American sports team apparel. That is kind of super weird because normally easycore is made by a bunch of high school aged skinny straight edge kids who shun sports. Luckily, by donning Vikings (seriously?) and Celtics jerseys, the crew in this band goes into the Alpha territory and shuns the beta crowd. Good for them.
Now, easycore is being pushed to its limits with all its progressive influence from both pop punk (hardest solos) and metalcore (hardest vocals) so naturally there is animosity as to what all the innovation will due to the broader fanbase. I leave you with this YouTube comment:
cKy was one of those bands that you only had "96 Quite Bitter Things" you downloaded off Limewire because you heard it on MTV. Well, cKy is better than that single track and this bluesy riffage is proof:
To be honest, they could just cut out most of the boring vocals of meaningless lyrics and just focus on that opening riff, cut the song down by a minute and add more double kick. Luckily my opinions were not important to cKy's producer who made this banger of an album.
If you think about it, no one rips on cKy saying they are sissy easycore or "not metal" or whatever. cKy brings together elitist metalheads with their near cousins the weed-smoking skateboard kids listening to punk. Hell, when these two forces got together and procreated we got the Killswitch Engages, Atreyus, and As I Lay Dyings. Carver City was a great album that saw support on both sides of the aisle and it looks like cKy is putting something out this year.
Today I give you two videos and ask you, the reader, to determine which video falls into the respective categories:
A: Alpha male metal bro with hard-as-fuq gym playlist getting shots of tequila and repping Emmure boxing gloves and getting all the 8/10s
B: Beta white-knight who spends his (enormous) free time defending the friendzone on Reddit, drinks vodka cranberrys and refuses to comment on his Myspace about any "sportsball" events
Now that you know the ground work for both categories check out the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q2EzlLzWOk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDE0AUt_dJY
If you are having trouble distinguishing the two videos perhaps you should stop "ironically" listening to Kings of Leon, take down your Asking Alexandria poster, and take a look in the mirror.
So I was thinking recently while listening to Woe Is Me's Genesi[s] and began to get sad that they got a new singer who can't hit any high notes and they don't open every song with a breakdown anymore :(. After clicking next and Underoath coming up I realized, more spotlight needs to be put on the aging #mosh4christ scene, that would be cool as hell. Without further ado, the first entry into what will likely be a one to two part series:
(I don't think the YouTube clips show up on mobile so I will try and post the direct link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61tQWAY71kk)
The track is "Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad" by Blessthefall. This tune oozes the #mosh4christ genre bullet points as illustrated in a list:
Pretentious name vaguely referencing biblical terms? Check
White-knight song lyrics and names? Check
Swoopy black hair? Check
Unison headbanging? Check
Probably played at a Warped Tour stop in 2009? Check
Whiny clean vocals interspersed with growling? Check
Every member is skinny as fook and grits their teeth for the entire music video? Check
The list could go on for days, but the point is they fit the scene really well. The song blabbers about asking God for forgiveness about some chick that broke up with the singer over a text or some other useless shit but the song-long breakdown makes sure the pit stays fired up. Heaven forbid you try to actually bring a beer into the pit though, shit ain't cool at a Blessthefall show (I've been to one (serious)). In sum, put on your Sunday best (in this case - skinny black jeans w/ wallet chain for the pit action during breakdowns, tight Parkway Drive or Minor Threat tee to show your serious, canvas shoes because they are very uncomfortable, a million wristbands to show what a concert vet you are, and an annoyingly positive attitude and adoration of the bands lyrics) and listen to Blessthefall, who's career died three yours ago, so they should be rising again soon.
Thought the whole Riff Your Face Off was a one off thing that was going to die after the first post? You were only half right:
Luckily this isn't some shit live version with poor recording so we get to hear the pure riffage over those sweet sweet 4/4 drums. Needs more triple kick but I digress. This track is a heavy ton of riffage with no vocals so you should play it over and over for your friends you are trying to introduce to the strict and well organized hierarchy of metal subgenres and who are only familiar with Staind and Disturbed as their "screamo" bands.
I like how the author of the video notes that this song "sounds like Tool in parts." I couldn't agree more: Tool has been using 8-strings since they recorded that cover of Johnny Cash's "Hurt." Or was that Nine Inch Nails? Doesn't matter because both of those bands are trash-core and couldn't write a prog breakdown to save their mainstream careers. Put it this way: more people have died at Smashing Pumpkin's shows than Tool and NIN combined (and the Pumpkin's have acoustic songs .... ewww).
So the super hot thing right now is the band Issues and boy do they like to make some bangers. Exhibit A:
That's the official music video muthatruckers. It's got the incredibly artistic skateboard intro sequence before it goes hard-as-fuk with the turntables and riff-tacular nonsense. Issues incorporates the whole this guy is the screamer/this guy is the singer duet thing that only Lacuna Coil has been able to perfect (serious). Not to mention the whole street vibe they give off, kind of like Bionic Jive only with less rap. Big downside I see immediately is they only have one guitarist. Can someone please post on their Facebook that its standard to have 3 or 4 guys chugging in the background?
So, my issue with Issues is that I am unsure what sub-group of people I am suppose to hang-out and listen to this band with. The skateboard theme pushes me toward the whole Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3/wear beanies in the summer/vans buying crowd. But then that intro comes in and just asks for a mosh. Just when you are about to windmill the fuk out of some straight-edge whiteknight in the pit the turntables make you think you are at an Incubus show, so now you are #scaredasfuk because you know only the big boys mosh it up at Incubus shows. You hear the screaming and harsh vocals so now you know you are at show where every chick is max 4/10 but then you do a 180 in the pit and start jumping in unison with a bunch of 15 yr old girls wielding their iPhone 5 cameras when the singer, Tyler Carter, crones his beautifully powerful lyrics over top that brutal double-kick (is he John Bonham or something? Dude is crazy fast). Do you see my problem now?
With almost 3,000,000 hits on their vid so far, the schizophrenia-core pioneers Issues are going to continue to confuse young high schoolers like myself into awkward positions. Am I allowed to like this band? Are they mainstream now, hence my disapproval and constant remarks of how I "listened to them before they got big"? It's to hard to tell for now so instead I will torrent their album and not listen to anything but this track.
Alright I have been getting absolutely none tons of emails complaining that I have "gotten away from the heavy" and post "worthless shit like Demon Hunter and Rage Against the Machine." Well yes sometimes I need to just highlight how the greatest guitarist of all time riffs (I'm talking about Demon Hunter not that homeless revolutionary Tom Morello). However, I hear your pleas and so I decided to take a track from the 2008 radio-chart-topping pop album World of Hatred by Demolisher.
What made this extremely accessible radio single popular with XXX-diamondcut straight edge pit ninjas? Well, for one, Demolisher embodies what this blog seeks to promote: eight-string downtuned riffy chugg-fest breakdowns fueling borderline ignorant mosh. There is no dancing around with choruses and bridges and other boring ass music-y shit like that. Demolisher just decided to boil everything down to the least common denominator and have fat guys mosh with angry, broke 20-something GED-wielding white kids. This YouTube clip probably doesn't sound all that great since your speakers will have been blown out from listening to Emmure and Suicide Silence while wearing your Job For a Cowboy hoodie to protect you from the cold standing in line for your third Born of Osiris show.
Either way, I will definitely be blasting the subs in my 2000 Toyota Corolla with this tune once I finally turn 16 (srs). Until then, I will be sad that Demolisher broke up after all these breakdowns and I will never get to go with my outcast high school friends who wear exclusively black to one of their shows full of 30 people. Shame.
