Metal : No Middle of the Road

Going into 2017 I needed to look at what I am doing when it comes to the time I expend covering bands. How many bands do I find myself  writing the same old shit about because they are playing the same old shit. I was talking to an A&R rep from a fairly well known label about an Atlanta band I am friends with and why the label never took an interest in them. The reason was they already have more than enough of what said band was selling. Sure they play a ton of shows and even tour, but all the hard work is to sell something that people already have. So this year I am going to try to cut out the middle of the road. By middle of the road here I do not mean, you are not heavy enough. In fact you can be less heavy , but if you bring to the table sounds that are your own and not recycled bands already have then I am good with you and will give your album a listen, but if I am hearing just a blur of distorted guitar and growling with nothing else to call your own, I'll press stop and delete the email, I might even start to send a pre generated letter of disinterest to the label or p/r company so they can know what not to send me.

Black metal and death metal might be the worse offenders here, but there are many metal band, my friends band I was talking about earlier included, who ride the line between a few genres they might be thrash, but have a denser death metal guitar tone and then add a little bit of a black metal rasp to the vocals, well we have already heard that. Punk and hard-core bands are not much better about this and with all of the sub-genres of various music I review here the band wagon is rolling.  What this means if you are in a band contacting me to review your music ? If you are a black metal band who feels like they are a little out of place when playing with other black metal bands then you are a band I want to hear , because the other bands that fit neatly into the black metal box are not for me since I already won Burzum, Darkthrone and Inquisition albums.

Metal is supposed to be a genre rooted in giving your middle finger to the rest of the world, so why conform? Why follow the blue print that Sabbath made then everyone has been marching behind. Sure it worked for Trouble and Candlemass, but even those bands brought something else to the table. So if you are a fan of cookie cutter bands or carbon copies, then you might need to start looking else where for your music since that is not what I want to do here. Does that mean I am going to stop reviewing death metal since they tend to sound the same ? No, I am going to review death metal bands that bring something new to the table.  If that is not what you want then find the kids table.