Rise
Against has climbed the ranks to being one of the biggest bands of
the modern day. It wasn’t an easy road to get here, at least compared to some
other of today’s biggest rock acts. Success wasn’t, and still isn’t, handed to
the band on a silver platter; in fact, they still have a long way to go. They
started off, as most bands, an independent who gathered enough of their own
money to go and record a full length debut album The Unraveling, as well as a second album, Revolutions Per Minute.
One genre of music I don’t quite understand is “Indie” rock.
Don’t misread that, I’m not saying I don’t like it, I just don’t understand it.
“Indie”, of course, stands for “independent”, and started a few decades ago by
bands, well, basically being independent. They recorded the music themselves,
distributed it themselves, etc. The part that confuses me is; if, say a heavy
metal band, like the next Metallica, were to record and distribute music independently,
they still wouldn’t be considered “indie” because they don’t have that sound
that “indie” bands have; a sound that isn’t harsh and requires the main instruments
of a rock band; guitar, drum, bass and vocals, maybe keyboards and other
instruments if wanted. These bands don’t sound similar to each other, but they
have something in common with their sound that keeps them indie. I guess a
better way to describe my confusion is, when did “indie” become an actual sub-genre
rather than just a title, and why when a band, such as Metric, becomes big and no longer distributes their own music, are
they still considered “indie rock”?
For the past few months, on every Tuesday (new music day) I’ve
been checking out any and every new rock album that comes out to see if it’s
worth a listen. I usually hope these albums aren’t too hard to get my hands on,
because I, of course, would like to write about them. A few weeks ago, I came
across The Rides. I was impressed,
on the short clips that I heard of a couple of their songs, at how they
sounded; blues-rock but more on the blues side, something I didn’t think modern
rock bands were capable of. I had only listened to bits of two songs before I
saw, right on the album cover, it showed the name Stephen Stills.
I don’t think I know a rock band that is disliked more than Avenged Sevenfold. The most amazing
thing is that none of these “haters” have any credible reason to dislike the
band. It appears that ever since the turn of the millennium, any hard
rock/metal band that gains popularity of any kind gets a lashing; it’s impossible
to win. But at the end of the day I’ve never met any of these seemingly
professional music analysts in person, they prefer to remain hidden, while in
reality (you know, that world beyond the computer screen) I meet more and more
fans of the band as they become among this generations biggest hard rock acts.
I’m going to take the time to write an article on another
not-new album. This time I’m going to go back to the summer of 1990, when heavy
metal would forever change. Many who know Pantera
(and let’s face it, there are MANY) know the band to have been the band to
create the “groove” metal genre, though I’ve never truly understood, beyond the
music of Pantera, what classifies as a “groove metal” band. The band didn’t
truly break ground on this new genre until their 1992 album Vulgar Display of Power, but before
that, the world got a glimpse of what was to come with Cowboys From Hell.
Alternative metal band Soil
never did break out in to rock stardom. Likely because there was never much
differentiating them from fellow contemporaries that were on a slow rise at the
time such as Puddle of Mudd, Seether and Drowning Pool. Albeit, all three of these mentioned bands are
mainly just known for just one song each; with a slight exception going to Seether.
