Alt-Metal

I think that nu-metal, even if it's not something a lot of people care for, is/was actually a lot more diverse than its detractors would have folks believe.

It's funny that a decade later I'm hearing people coming out and saying nu-metal should be forgiven. It's kind of a surreal anyone looking back on it with nostalgia. For my part though, I still hate the genre for a number of reasons.

And speaking of which, Slipknot just released another song that sounds like it could've come out in 2001.

True, totally true. It's really apparent that (early) Taproot, American head Charge and Linkin Park all sound completely different for example. Incidentally, I'm probably going to cover Gift by Taproot in next week's post.

This new Slipknot is decent. That makes it 2 for 3 on songs I have heard off the new album (didn't care for The Negative One but the Devil In I rocked).

And honestly, I wouldn't say I look back on it with nostalgia. I like the good bands in the genre as a "legitimate" part of my taste, not because I liked them at the time. I actually didn't. I was pretty insistent on "true metal" when I was a teen and wrote off anything without solos. No idea why, as I can't even play the triangle myself! But now I listen with an open mind, I find a lot of it is very good music which I really enjoy. Obviously lots of people disagree though. To each their own.

edited 10th Oct '14 4:44:09 PM by Jonny0110

There a some Nu Metal bands I can get behind- P.O.D., Korn (they pretty much started the whole mess, so of course they did it better than most), Deftones, (həd) p.e., Disturbed (though they might not even count) and even the first two Linkin Park albums (albeit in a kinda guilty pleasure sorta way in relation to the lyrics, but the music is solid)...

Also, there a few bands that I love (i.e. Rage Against The Machine, System Of A Down, Incubus) who are often kinda lumped in with the movement even though I would personally say they don't actually count as Nu Metal at all...

edited 10th Oct '14 5:58:41 PM by sharkcrap11

Cold is one of my favorites (I made their page on this site - shameless plug ), though I think that really only their first couple of albums could be categorized as nu-metal; everything after that is basically post-grunge with a bit of alt-metal. I find it interesting that most of their songs have the guitars tuned all the way down to C, which is lower than not only a lot of nu/alt-metal bands, but even some extreme metal.

I've never really thought of Cold as a Nu Metal band, but whatever. Pretty good band either way...

Yeah, I guess I can see what you mean. They just seemed to me to get lumped in with the late 90s/early 2000s "detuned guitars + angsty lyrics, therefore nu-metal" group of bands so I've always thought of them that way.

Well even though SOAD and Incubus were not actually Nu-Metal I think they both benefitted in popularity from the Nu-Metal trend since they shared certain surface characteristics with the genre. Since they all became popular around the same time period it's easy to lump them all together. I was too young to notice this style music at the time but I imagine that the over presence of the "detuned guitars + angsty lyrics" style of rock must have felt oppressive, to the point that the good bands in the lot would lose their appeal.

Nu-Metal doesn't appeal to me in general but since I didn't experience the trend first hand I don't really have a strong opinion about it. Some of it just leaves me scratching my head, especially Limp Bizkit. I've never heard their music played anywhere and the only times I see them brought up is people bashing them. From what I've heard from them they are pretty terrible but to me they're more like an odd curiosity than the "worst thing ever".

edited 10th Oct '14 8:03:10 PM by djbj

& A lot of bands from a certain time period who had a certain guitar sound/production style kinda got lumped into it, so I agree here...

Limp Bizkit are just hilarious, IMO. They do kinda suck, but it's more amusing than outright offensive, or at least it is in small doses- I'd imagine that, if I had to listen to all of their albums one after another in one sitting I'd probly be really unhappy... Come to think of it, anything played ad infinitum would be terrible, but Bizkit would be worse than most.

That said, Nu Metal as a whole does seem to attract this visceral, almost knee-jerk hatred that's kinda perplexing and has few parallels in music criticism/fandom. Maybe overexposure, perhaps?

edited 11th Oct '14 12:16:51 AM by sharkcrap11

Cold's first 2 albums are totally nu metal - I mean "1, 2, 3, here I come with the wicked" and all. I really love them they're awesome. Year of the Spider and 13 Ways are my favourites. I also managed to get into A Different Kind of Pain recently where before all the songs sounded the same to me.

edited 11th Oct '14 2:19:53 AM by Jonny0110

Same here with ADKOP; it has some of my favorite songs by them now, especially the title track. Scooter's other project, The Killer and the Star, is pretty neat as well IMO, though it's not really heavy or metallic at all and he uses Auto-Tune on some of the songs, which may turn some folks off from it (though I'm pretty sure it's for the effect, since he can obviously sing well enough without it).

Yeah I couldn't get past the vocals of The Killer and the Star, sadly. Really wanted to like it :(

Still -with no disrespect to anyone who actively enjoys the genre- I think trying to find the good qualities in nu-metal is fruitless; I legitimately don't believe there are any.

All totally subjective, of course.

Yeah no worries I knew what you were getting at :)

I've noticed that too and there seems to be this "revival" going on - although other than Sylar I haven't found anything I really cared for in this new wave.

Like I said, no disrespect intended.

Is it possible that the people alive for nu-metal's heyday (who didn't "graduate" to some other genre) are making music now that they'd be somewhere in their mid 20's-early 30's?

edited 13th Oct '14 4:11:38 AM by Alucard

Probably, though no doubt even people who were into Nu Metal in its heyday who still like have diversified their tastes somewhat since then. I started paying attention to Rock and Metal around the time that the second Linkin Park album came out and between the second and third Disturbed, to put things in perspective (I'm 25), so I'd imagine a lot of the new-ish bands whose members are close to my age may have somewhat similar experience to me in terms of music awareness...

edited 13th Oct '14 11:00:42 PM by sharkcrap11

But yeah totally people will be bringing nu metal influences into their work if they grew up on it. Sadly, that leads to stuff like Emmure!

I'm sure it's not all that bad. In fact, I know it's not. Still doesn't forgive Emmure though...

Just bought my tickets for American Head Charge and Soil on the 29th

Time to dust off my copy of Redefine!

Keep us posted on that, dude. Looking forward to hearing about that- I hear they're good live, and I like them in general.

I gave the album a listen - I do love old Leather Lungs Ryan Mc Combs! Yeah I'm looking forward to them the most. AHC are amaaaazing but this will be the 4th time I've seen them live and I've never seen Soil before!

Real fan right here. They opening or co-headlining with Soil? I've heard a few of Soil's tunes and liked 'em, but I just never got around to listening to any of their records all the way through...

Co headlining. And (HED) P.E. are supporting. I never managed to get into them so I'm hoping seeing them live convinces me!

Haha. Soil are good. I'd give Redefine a listen. It'll leave you satisfied... it's definitely not prog.

I like hed PE myself- they have a decent amount of musical range and ability.

That's a good one, it's one of the ones of theirs I've heard before...