Hello, long time lurker, first time poster.
Before anyone claims otherwise, no, I'm not a neu-metal kiddie. I've been listening to (and playing, as a bassist) to metal most of my adult life, and my playlist mostly includes Power Metal (Blind Guardian, Helloween, Dragonforce, etc), Melodic Death Metal (Arch Enemy, Kalmah, old In Flames, before they sucked), and old Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden, Manowar, etc).
So. Ahem.
Hello, I am Krulla and I like Are You Dead Yet?
At first I didn't like it, at all - Mostly because it didn't sound like the Hatecrew I know and love - However... I can honestly say I think it's as good as Follow the Reaper and Hatebreeder.
It's different than the masterpieces Hatebreeder and FTR, to be sure - And some people claim this is due to the Hatecrew "Selling out".. However.... the opposite is literaly the truth. If they had kept churning out HB and FTR copies for the last five years, that would have been selling out - When they released those two, they were little more than bright eyed, fresh fashed, borderline alchohlic teenagers from some obscure middle of nowhere town in Finland. They have obviously changed and matured as people, and if they're music didn't reflect that, they'd be selling out, making copies of their most popular records for simple monetary gain, not artistic value.
AYDY? is a good album. Sure, there are a few not-so-hot songs, but there are also plenty of good ones - Living Dead Beat and We're not gonna fall are awesome. There are, to me at least, no utterly aweful songs on it.
People complain it doesn't include enough shredding, like HB and FTR, but shredding isn't the scale on which musicianship is judged. The shredding on AYDY? is good, and fits the songs - it's not shredding for shredding's sake. I've got a 16 year old cousin which is a excellent guitarist, and can shred like it's noone's business, but does that make him a great musician? No. It means he's a good guitarist. Music isn't about showing the world how technically good you are, it's about making art.
It's not their best, sure, but it's not bad either.
So, if you actually LIKE Are You Dead Yet?, speak up!