Bard In The Forest said:
and to the last guy, what does size and color have to do with being metal? If being tough is what you think is metal go join the tough-guy hard edge straightcore scene. You're already listening to the music (God Forbid).
You missed my point entirely. I wouldn't want to tell him he isn't metal because I am relatively short and white and he could easily kick my ass, or use my intestines for dental floss, or some such fate. Not that he would, as I'm sure he is a lovely man.
The problem with New American Heavy Metal is indeed that most of it is actually metalcore, screamo, or some sort of post-emo-hardcore-punk-slit my wrist bullshit. There are SO few new bands coming along doing straight up metal. When I think of America and metal in the same sphere I think "early Metallica" which is the gold standard we as Americans have, to show us what is metal and what is crap. Obviously we can no longer use Metallica as a watermark because they suck, but even so, all my favorite metal bands are either Scandinavian or dead or both. Venom, Death, Bathory, Opeth, you get the picture.
Even the gods of metal (Maiden, Priest, Motorhead, Sabbath, Zeppelin) were all British. The American metal pedigree isn't really that kind of metal- it's thrash, as done by Metallica, Megadeth, and more obscure outfits like Blind Illusion and Heathen. The big American rock acts back in the 70's, when Sabbath and Maiden and Priest were big, were KISS and Aerosmith and Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd and Lynyrd Skynyrd, none of which are very metal by any stretch of the imagination.
So we have these kids now with no American musical heroes to speak of, left to their own devices to copy European metal. However, they also listen to shit American bands. So then we get mixtures of Immortal and Bright Eyes, which roughly translates into Aiden.
America is MUCH better at progressive music. We have Queensryche and Tool.
Yay for us!
This is why Mastodon is so fucking awesome. They're American, they kick all kinds of ass, they don't look like total freaks and they don't whine about their girlfriends or slit their wrists. They make good fucking music about whales and everyone rocks out to them.
