Like last week, Brian is again joining Kyle “in studio” due to his continued power outage. He has also been sleeping on friends’ couches the last three days and, as you will find out, has taken a bit of a toll on him. (As you may be able to tell by the brevity and lack of humor in this post, he may still be recovering…it also may be because Nick is watching SNL in the background and its utter lack of humor is quite uninspiring….)
Reviews: Abiotic – Symbiosis; Cradle of Filth – The Manticore and Other Horrors; Surrounded By Monsters – Novella
Abiotic – Symbiosis
Cradle Of Filth – Manticore And Other Horrors
Surrounded By Monsters – Novella
The Sideshow Podcast 
Oh man, A Crow Left of the Murder was actually my favorite Incubus album!
-A band who has the potential to break out? For me it is TesseracT. While I thought that their album One was ok, I wasn’t all that impressed and I don’t seem to have liked it as much as most other people. But I definitely see the potential in the band and am looking for them to grow and take things to another level on their next album.
-I can’t think of Cradle of Filth without being reminded of The IT Crowd, the British TV show, and the character Richmond whose life was changed after listening to Cradle of Filth and is then banished to work in the server room in the IT department.
-Metalcore is a fad. Prog is not a fad.
-And SNL has been without humor for about 15 years now. But I also realize that everyone has their favorite era of SNL from when they were younger. My father thinks SNL hasn’t been funny since the 70s.
Ok…about this Metalcore/Prog thing…
Progressive Metal is not a fad. I never said it was. It has been around for a long time in some form or another, and it is not going anywhere. However, as I stated and Kyle was blatantly disregarding, is that being Progressive is very popular right now. I mean, look at a lot of the new bands being signed and the popularity of bands from Between the Buried and Me to Periphery to even newer acts like TesseracT and Animals as Leaders. You also have bands like The Contortionist, Born of Osiris, The Faceless and even After the Burial heading further and further in that direction. The Progressive elements have been in these bands from the start, but they are coming out more as the band gets further into their careers. A band like The Contortionist may completely abandon any -core aspects by their next album exploring this direction and The Faceless made a big leap with their progressive sound in their latest album, which may have split some fans. Is it a good or bad thing? That’s subjective, and ultimately irrelevant. Dabbling in Progressive elements or moving further into that direction (if your band already has the elements) or, as a label, signing Progressive Metal (or Death Metal or Deathcore) bands seems like “the thing to do” right now
Metalcore, I will argue, is not a fad either. Yes, Metalcore was much bigger in the early-mid 2000’s but it is still here about 12-13 years later* and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Bands from it’s heyday are still maintaining careers in it, like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Unearth, Bleeding Through, etc. You also have bands in the likes of Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, We Are The Romans, Memphis May Fire, and their ilk (all those bands splattered in Hot Topics) that have taken Metalcore and essentially exaggerated the qualities of the heavier riffs and breakdowns, and the melodic refrains and clean vocals to their respective extreme points. What we personally think about it is irrelevant. The point is that Metlacore is here in those “older” bands, the new “Hot Topic” bands and also bands like August Burns Red, Within The Ruins, Parkway Drive, This or The Apocalypse, Calbian, etc. They are all still running steadily and keeping Metalcore alive.
*Most attribute Killswitch’s 2002 opus “Alive or Just Breathing” to starting Metalcore. While that obviously brought it to the spotlight, KsE has an album before that in 2000, Unearth’s “The Sting’s of Conscience” came out a year before “…Just Breathing” (and they had an EP in 1999), Shadows Fall put out “Of One Blood” in 2000, with “Somber Eyes to the Sky” in 1997. Bleeding Through also released Portrait of a Goddess” in 2002, preceded by “Dust to Ashes” a year earlier. So, point being, the exact length of Metalcore’s existence is debatable.