Great
lyrics, I'm sure you'll agree. Metal, eh? Not heavy-metal, because that's
just rock 'n' roll with a bit more distortion and worse haircuts. But metal,
a big clunking lump of the stuff. This metal is so heavy, man, you don't
even need to say it's heavy. You just know, dude.
I never liked heavy-metal (or hebby-meddle as I prefer
to call it) because it's basically a load of shit. Okay, Black Sabbath
had some great songs and some damn fine riffs, but overall as a genre it
doesn't appeal to me, it's just too formulaic and too silly. But metal.
That's different. Metal is serious. Metal is heavy, really,
really heavy. I always respect music which tries to be as heavy as it possibly
can without actually destroying the speakers.
Take Slipknot, manufactured darlings of the 'lets fuck
a dead squirrel' brigade. Slipknot don't sound at all heavy to me. They
sound no heavier than, say, N'Sync. Why? No contrast. It's just the same
range in all the song, so what would normal seem heavy just seems tame.
If you just go NNNNAAAGGGH NNNNNNAAAAGGHH NNNNAAAGGH forever then you find
that 'NNNAAAGGH' doesn't sound heavy at all.
I'm no Metallica fan, but I can appreciate the fact that
their records have contrast in them. They don't just sound the same
all the way through. Because heaviness only sounds heavy when compared
with something which is, like, not heavy. Loudness is relative;
volume 11 won't sound as loud as volume 7 if you've put volume 3 before
that, if that makes sense.
I think more bands should use really heavy sections in
their records, like Sonic Youth do, but to make a whole song or a whole
album with the same dull sound is pointless. Punk rock has a reputation
for being simple, but very few punk songs are just a load of power chords,
like much Nu-Metal is.
I like many of the ideas of Nu-Metal, and it's definitely
a progression from heavy metal. But it suffers from defeating its own purpose;
Nu-Metal is basically just the desire for something that's just a sound.
I'm sure most people who listen to Slipknot just want to put something
on to piss off their parents. Metal and punk rock has always been like
that, the difference now is it that bands have given up trying to make
something which isn't just noise. And record companies have cottoned on,
producing the likes of Limp Biscuit.
But there's only so heavy you can go. I'm sure next year
some band with come along, tuned to drop F, playing one-chord songs with
the noise of children being killed in the background.
And the daft thing? They still won't sound heavier
than Metallica!
But
Nu-Metal? Not right now, thanks. Nu-Metal just don't work. Nu-Metal doesn't
work not because it's heavy, but because it's just
not.
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