“Jinjer play a combination of groove metal, metalcore, and nu metal. Vocalist Tatiana Shmailyuk does some screams, growls, aggressive spoken-word poetry, and clean vocals over top of it. If Issues didn’t try to be the combination of metalcore, Flo-Rida, and R Kelly that they are and instead were just another metalcore band, they’d probably sound like Jinjer.” Is nu metal still new?
“Yes, folks, there’s a band called Housebreaking, and their second full-length, Against All Odds, is here, and is promoted as a cross between Amon Amarth, Rammstein, Dark Tranquillity, and… Soulfly?” If they pull off that epic mix, you may need to put some newspapers down.
“Another day, another album from Max Cavalera. Soulfly’s latest offering, Archangel, arrives just 22 months after its predecessor Savages, during which time Max also released a Cavalera Conspiracy album and participated in the supergroup Killer Be Killed. Now, you if you’re thinking, “Gee, Dr. Fisting, that sure sounds like an awful lot of releases for a guy who’s also touring most of the time! I wonder if that affects the quality of the music,” you might be onto something.” Not everyone is cut out to be Vardan.
“Cast your minds back to a time when metal music was not cool. Nay, indeed, a time when metal was anathema to all that was considered to be “chic” and “in.” A time when your favorite bands were actually encouraged by the music industry to play slower, cut their hair, and write sensitive lyrics about their childhoods. Yes, this unfortunately really happened. Our semi-irregular feature “90s Metal Weirdness” focuses on albums released between 1992 and 2001 and which we all probably would rather forget. But in the service of publicly shaming the musicians involved, we have pushed forward.”
Deep inside we knew we were still due something. From Bliss to Devastation kept on resurfacing from the depths of our dusty, imaginary shelves lost somewhere in our memory. The years following Vision of Disorder’s (VOD) split in 2002 saw them being held responsible (together with a bunch of other bands) for the birth and growth of nü metal; a genre which overstayed its welcome far longer than it took it to express itself in a constructive manner. If it wasn’t all bad, that was probably because the seeds had been sown by bands like Faith No More, Tool and Rage against the Machine… and Vision of Disorder.
A really curious thing happens from time to time that I think it’s time to comment on. Because we all (that is, those of us who read and/or write AngryMetalGuy.com) love heavy metal, we all essentially draw boundaries for it. It all depends on your perspective, but largely we say that one thing is metal and another thing is not. We make fun of the things we find to be not metal and we praise (and often deify unnecessarily) that which we find to be super metal. This is not a surprise. In fact, I’d guess that it’s a natural part of the human brain: we group things and put them in their place so as to better order our world. We also use cognitive short cuts in order to reach conclusions about the vast seas of information that exist outside of our existence.
Lacuna Coil is a band that I used to like pretty well. I’ve seen them live a few times and I thought they put on pretty good shows and I have a lot of respect for them as a hardworking touring band. Musically, though, I think they’ve been pretty hit and miss. While I enjoy In A Reverie, Unleashed Memories and liked a few songs off of Comalies, their modern sound has developed into something that is really quite derivative of the American “nu-metal trend” and specifically their last record Shallow Life was produced in a way that sounded exactly like Linkin Park and was entirely unlistenable to these ears. So I have to say that it was with consternation that I elected to start listening to this album in the first place.
I know I’m late. Sure, this review isn’t coming out weeks ahead of time, and pretty much no one is looking for In Flames reviews now as it was leaked early and most everyone has already had a chance to hear the new record Sounds of a Playground Fading. For me, however, this is a record that needed some reviewing. See, I used to be a big In Flames fan. Their early albums rate among my favorite melodic death metal records of all time and they really defined and did that sound, “their sound,”as well as it can be done (I guess that’s a little redundant). But I, like many fans, became remarkably disillusioned with the band after Reroute to Remain. There is an irony that the year that record was released, Gothenburg took Ozzfest by storm, as well as a host of metalcore bands that sounded just like In Flames… had.
Since then, I’ve been remarkably unimpressed with the band’s output. The movement back towards a heavier sound has not been particularly successful, and the sickly sweet melody that really defined the band’s sound through Colony kind of disappeared along the introduction of a distressingly oversized dose of Anders’ new Jonathan Davis-like whines. But every time they release a record, I always feel a bit of nostalgia and hope. A hope that maybe this time In Flames will regain that magic they once had. With a name like Sounds of a Playground Fading, though, one gets the feeling that this record will be anything but.
I just reviewed the new Behemoth record on here, and while it was good, there was one thing that had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the record that stood out for me. I couldn’t really include it as a major critique in the record, but now I can at least mention it… […]
