Like anybody else who writes about music and has a publicly-visible email address, I received a press release earlier this week boasting about deathcore pioneers Bring Me The Horizon’s “gutsy” new video. In this post, I will share my thoughts on this video, which are as follows:

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All these bands decided to release new videos within the past twenty-four hours. So I’m just lumping them all together in one post, the same way my mom lumps any music with loud guitars together under the heading, “Things I assume my degenerate son must like.”

First up we have this pretty amazing video for “Tres Brujas” from The Sword. I’m not even, like, the biggest The Sword fan in the world, but I gotta hand it to them, they have definitely made the nerdiest stoner metal video I’ve ever seen by a band that isn’t Mastodon. The thirteen year-old zit faced virgin in me thinks that this video is incredible, and the eight year-old autistic kid who’s never heard of Sabbath in me thinks the music is pretty great, too.

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Some things never change: The sky is blue, water is wet, and girls only like a band if they want to eff one or more members. I’m a realist: I know there’s probably nothing I can do to change that, but as a responsible adult, I feel like it’s my duty to speak out on this sad state of affairs, and say what nobody else will: LADIES, QUIT EFFING BAND DUDES!!!

Entry-levelers and haters will think this is sour grapes, but it’s not like that at all — as someone with some serious, wizard-level game, I had my “effing a ridiculous/shameful number of random young, stupid, hot girls” phase, but I am now using my powers for good. If I can save just one young girl from blowing some filthy loser, or one young man from making the biggest mistake of his life (joining a band), then all my hard work is worth it!

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First things first: screamo is literally worse than the Holocaust in my book. With a few notable exceptions, I absolutely cannot stand this shit. That said, with bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Underoath selling out huge venues, putting out platinum-selling albums, and selling truckloads of cookie-cutter merch to every angsty suburban teen within driving distance of a Hot Topic, it’s hard not to pay attention to the genre. I might not like it, but Kids These Days certainly do. My biggest question: Where the fuck did this shit come from??

As someone who saw the birth of metalcore and “true screamo”/skramz firsthand in the 90s, I am highly confused when I listen to these bands. On the one hand, they are not so different from anything that could have been on Victory or Indecision in the 90s (Earth Crisis, All Out War, Bloodlet). Obviously there are some things that have changed over time, but the fundamentals of metalcore are still there (see my post “The 5 Kinds Of Music Teens Are Into” for more details). On the other hand, the kids in Alesana, August Burns Red, and possibly even As I Lay Dying have no fucking idea who those pioneering metalcore bands are, much less that screamy vocals were born in the tiny basement shows and vegan bakesales of the 90s DIY hardcore scene.

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I am going to assume that a decent portion of the followers of this site are themselves musicians with bands of their own. That is generally how it goes with metal. There are seamless lines blurred between the “fans” and the “bands” because, like myself, many metal patrons represent both categories. Without this large sector of musician fans, technically proficient bands that cater directly to this base (like Dream Theater, Meshuggah, and Necrophagiast) would be much less successful. So to those musicians, I would like to use this blog to shine a light on one of the harsh truths in all music and entertainment that many musicians choose to ignore -

Image matters a lot in this industry. In fact, it’s probably just as important as the music.
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You’re Ben Weinman, you’re a genius, and for whatever reason, you’re remixing a Bring Me the Horizon song. What the hell are you supposed to do with it?

Change it to the point where’s it’s not at all recognizable, that’s what.

An anonymous reader sent me this video, which plays BMTH’s original “I’ve Read About Girls Like You On the Backs of Toilet Doors” side-by-side with Weinman’s remix, which is really just a completely different song with a few samples taken from the original. As a matter of fact, for most of the “remix,” it sounds like you could be listening to outtakes from some of the Aphex Twinier moments of Ire Works (“Sick on Sunday,” the intro to “Dead as History,” etc.). And that’s a good thing.

-AR

Reader Samuel Favata sent us the below video with the assurance that “No this is NOT BMTH!”

Then I had to Google “BMTH” to find out what the fuck BMTH is.

Anyways, this band is actually called Miss May I. I actually thought the opening riff was pretty cool if totally standard death metal shit, but then the singing started…

-AR

I haven’t done a blog in a while because the last blog I did really got me thinking about the mentality of people in the metal scene. Most particularly, the mentality of shit talking. We’re all guilty of it. I admitted to shit talking Bring Me The Horizon in magazines over in Europe when I was in God Forbid. I never heard them at that point. But now, I dig them and I feel pretty stupid for slagging them.

In my last blog I mentioned my excitement for the band Eryn Non Dae and how I was going to “borrow” some of their ideas for my new project. First of all, my last blog was PACKED with information about band business, touring and juicy tidbits of amazing knowledge :) But, the funny thing about the last blog was this guy ‘Jamie.’ Out of a five hundred word blog, he took the phrase “borrow ideas” and accused me and God Forbid of riding the coat tails of other popular bands. Killswitch was his biggest gripe. Then it was Opeth.

He claimed Gone Forever (2004) was a Killswitch rip and Earthsblood (2009) was an Opeth rip. This type of thing usually doesn’t bother me. In this instance I was fucking bothered. Jamie and I entered into a written brawl about the history of God Forbid and the intentions of our song writing for the last ten fucking years. Why would I waste my time to defend myself from this sort of claim?

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Next week the U.S. gets a new President, thank fucking God, and Relapse Records is celebrating by issuing a 7″ box set of their This Comp Kills Fascists compilation. How fucking awesome is that? Until then, here’s what we’ll mull over during the long weekend (MLK day in the U.S.):

• Would you like to suck my cock, Berzerker? Or would you just like to look at some bloody titties, Berzerker?
• Lamb of God announce most awesomest tour ever with As I Lay Dying (meh), Children of Bodom, God Forbid and Municipal Waste, while Killswitch Engage, Chimaira and Lacuna Coil will be worth the ticket price as long as we leave before Disturbed goes on.
• Best soundboard ever. (Hint: fun with David Lee Roth sound bites)
• Bring Me The Hair Irons Horizon continued being boring.
• We spoke with Gojira’s Joe Duplantier and Animosity’s Leo Miller.
• Behemoth’s Nergal showed his face, while this dude just buried his in a bunch of watermelons.

MetalSucks Maniac Ray Pecheone e-mailed me today, imploring me to check out Bring Me the Horizon’s new video for “The Comedown.” I dig that these dudes don’t take themselves too seriously (and that they like The Predator), but I’m not too into the music.

Thoughts, anyone?

-AR

For better or worse, I had the same reaction to two recent death-metal releases from Earache: “Meh.” Maybe I’m just burnt out right now, but neither of these albums exactly knocked my socks off.

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