Metal Reviews

It seems that just about every band these days uses clean singin as championed by the nobs out of fagcore bands like Trivium and Killswitch Engage.

The examples include the usual Gothenberg muppets ala Scar Symmetry and Soilwork, but also bands ala Machine Head. It also infests power metal.

I was watching Monsters of Metal Vol 6 and just about every modern band did it. Even the Power Metal guys did it.

Why?

This is why this shit is not cool:

1. Singing like an emo fag is not heavy metal.
2. It ruins the flow of the song.
3. This singing style is completely derivative and emotionless.
4. It's making everything sound samey.

I don't mind soft singing in metal - hell I love power ballads ala Pantera's Cemetary Gates or Skid Row's Wasted Time or soft stuff like Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or Iron Maiden's Journey Man.

But it's something that has to be done well. And the singer has to know how to sing and have a good voice.

Dan Swano (Edge of Sanity) and Burton C. Bell did the soft/heavy thing a lot better. Both had unique vocal deliveries and the songs were well written.

But these new guys (well relatively new) just rehash the same fucking song and then whine like little bitches.


Mind you, this sort of whiney fag singing infests modern pop as well. What happened to good male singing?!?

Rant off.

I think the contrast of growling/screaming can be sexy and exciting when it's done right, but a lot of bands end up with aggressionless screams and forgettable melodies, which does not work. I prefer the way post-hardcore bands like Letlive or Thrice have more fluidity between the screaming and the singing. Metal bands tend to prefer a stark contrast between screaming and singing, and switch between the two in predictable ways. Not as fun. As for why it sounds samey... probably because it's a trend, and most musicians aren't original.

Speculation: most of the "emo" voice sounds to me like vocalists straining their voices, which has the advantage of sounding desperate/intense/emotional, but the disadvantage of being difficult to control... but then with autotune and modern studio technology they can control it more conveniently. Which results in lots of bands doing it in the last ten years. I have no idea if this is accurate, but from watching live videos where emo-type singers are all over the place I feel like it's part of the reason.

ps. Would take dude from KSE (any of them) or Trivium over Burton C Bell any day ever. Dude is not good.

fucking scene kids, all i gotta say.

I remember at my local CD store (small one, has a fuck ton of metal) and the owner and I were talking and he had Bathory's the Golden Walls Of Heaven (I love Bathory) playing over the speakers and these two kids in Killswitch Engaged shirts asked; "What is this crap, it sounds like shit". I died a little inside that day. I swear these scene kids are ruining metal.

Of course you like shitty and formulaic musical elements, you haven't listened to any underground metal in god knows how long. For anyone else, its a generic corporate formula designed to have a hook, and sell records as opposed to being an element of good songwriting. Shitty bands like Into Eternity and Scar Symmetry are notorious for their homosexual choruses, it completely makes their safe music even weaker.

By the look of this thread I at least have homosexual tendencies considering I like some of the bands mentioned here. Fuck, I'd better tell my girlfriend then.

Seriously, when the hooks are good and the songs entertaining who the fuck cares how true the songwriting really is. I want to see one person denying that music is primarily entertainment. Now, I can understand those who just can't stomach anything slightly commercial or catchy to their metal, all I care about is how much fun/emotion/pleasure I get while playing it. Go A7X! Go GAY Metal!

it's not my fault underground metal bands couldnt write a memorable song to save their lives 8-)

As mentioned before in this thread, these styles of singing might just be the way to intertwine the catchy and I have to add shitty vocal melodies of the pop genre into the mighty depths of metal to sell more and more CD's. A lot of youngsters nowadays listen to a song or an album for small bits and pieces just to hear that catchy vocal melody and nothing more. As a result it takes away from the structure and the song-writing of the whole album for that matter and the mission is accomplished by the artist. I also have to add that at one point I liked Holographic Universe by Scar Symmetry because a few albums back when they still hadn't turned very shitty they still had structure and very good song-writing to their albums. Although a band like Trivium is an outrage to the metal genre with their modernity.

Its not my fault your not smart enough to find an underground band that can suit your loser pop metal sensibilities.

Never gets old hah

You lost me at Scar Symmetry sucks.

You know they damned well do you geriatric. Noodles likes them because they are easy listening with their sugar coated swed"Death"riffs, safe melodies, and the fact they give his vagina a nice tingling. I EXPECTED MORE FROM YOU

Geriatric .. lol .. I'm not even the oldest one on these boards

I just have never understood extreme hate for pop metal; it's not like it displaces some underground metal that would not have otherwise existed. For me it's about being in a certain mood and finding music to fit that mood. And when you listen to 90% metal, this means you tend to listen to the entire spectrum.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like metal that is hiding a lack of songwriting under a mountain of sugar coated production, but in the case of Scar Symmetry or even Soilwork, 'tis not the case.

You'll have to admit Soilwork have known better days. Their last offerings tend to be formulaic to say the least. They use all the tricks in the book like good professionals do but it's uninspired. Kinda like what In Flames or Children of Bodom did in the sale time frame.

Have to disagree with Soilwork. Figure Number Five and Stabbing the Drama certainly fit that description, but Divide was decent (except Exile), and Ive enjoyed the hell out of Panic Broadcast. The best they have sounded since Chaos.

The new In Flames is decent, much better than their last four.

Agree on Bodom, I dont see them recovering.

I don't like Scar Symmetry! But I agree with this:



I like badass riffs and music that's fun to sing along to so I think putting them together is awesome when it's done right.

I guess it's a totally inconceivable concept that maybe these bands actually like the music they're writing, and, I dunno, maybe that's why they're writing it? If their goal was to sell records from the beginning, why aren't they doing the boy-band thing? Or making Crunkcore or something? I'm sure that would get a lot more sales than heavy guitars and death grunts.

It has nothing to do with that when it occurs for more than three albums, and becomes a staple and declining factor for many of these younger bands. The boyband thing is a misnomer as that is an entire genre bilking in and of itself, as opposed to a genre of metal, with shitty bands such as Trivium utilizing these elements to SELL records. It can be as you say for the mere "love" of making the music, but when it occurs ad nauseam without any sort of progression, exploration of other elements, than like Trivium, In flames, Protest the Hero, and all of the other shitty bands hipsters fellate over it becomes nothing but pop metal crap.

But Trivium, In Flames and Protest the Hero have all changed through their careers.