I grew up on metal. I graduated from high school in 1989, right before a summer when Jane’s Addiction and The Cure disrupted my musical trajectory forever. But up to that point, my high school years coincided with the glorious peak years of 1980s heavy metal. My denim jacket featured a full back patch of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning album cover and the front showcased patches for Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Slayer.
Everything changed in the early 90s. Metal bands struggled to maintain a top position in the pecking order of heavy mainstream music as grunge, alternative rock, and industrial music took its place. My interest in metal waned with the downward trend of the genre’s album sales during the 90s, but my love for heavy music remained, replacing classic metal with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. By the turn of the century my appreciation for many of the classic metal bands of my youth returned. Several bands who made it through the dark valley of the 1990s emerged with some incredible work in the early 2000s. Brave New World by Iron Maiden, FWX by Fate’s Warnings and We’ve Come for You All by Anthrax are three examples of solid records by bands who were arguably past their heyday. Metal, both classic and new bands, seemed to find a comfortable spot as a healthy subculture at the beginning of the 21st century. New bands innovated, while showing respect for the old guard that forged the path that they were now following.
As far as heavy music goes, I still admittedly know more about metal bands from the 1980s or alternative bands from the 1990s than any who formed after 2000, but there are three 21st Century bands that I’ve come to really appreciate. Ironically, they are all classified as post-hardcore which is a genre with a lineage that I have been aware of over the decades, but never really connected with. The elements of the post-hardcore bands that I’m most attracted to is the power, speed, and energy reminiscent of the late 80s thrash movement, combined with emotive pop melodies that tend to take me bake to the alternative bands I loved in the 90s. Regardless of classification, these three bands have some combination of influence and style that I really dig.
My daughter, Ruby, turned me onto PTV about five years ago when she was still in middle school. She wanted to go see them in concert, and I was intrigued by the idea of going to the kind of show I would have gone to at that age. Up to that point I had basically ignored these new waves of heavy bands, but something about their sound reminded me of the old school metal of the past and I gave them a chance. Collide with the Sky was their current album and “King For a Day” was the big song. I liked it a lot, but didn’t love it. Then a couple years later they release Misadventures, and I fell in love with it. For my taste “Phantom Power and Ludicrous Speed” is one of the best heavy rock songs I’ve ever heard…and I’ve heard a lot.
One thing I’ve learned about myself is that loving a single band of a certain genre doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll love other bands in that genre. After finding Pierce the Veil I went on a quest to find other similar bands using the magic algorithms in our modern digital music delivery systems. No such luck. None of the bands I came across did it for me…until I found Picturesque. They’re a club band from Kentucky with a growing following and have only been around since 2014 so there’s much to look forward to. Their one full length album Back to Beautiful (2017) is fantastic from start to finish, and I could equally pick a number of songs from it to feature. Since then, they’ve released a string of singles that have definitely evolved toward a more conventional pop sound. I’ll be interested to see where they go from here.
I’m really new to DGD, although the band has been around for as long as Pierce the Veil. Ruby, who’s now in college, thought I’d dig them because of my PTV fandom, and passed along the referral from a mutual friend. It was risky, but she was right. I’m not generally a fan of bands that have a mix of clean and unclean vocals. DGD has dedicated vocalists for each, and that certainly wasn’t what sparked my interest. I really like the power and emotion of the music and the music and the sound and texture of clean vocalist Tilian Pearson and the remarkable guitar work of Will Swan. There’s a sweetness to both of those players’ work that is extremely powerful juxtaposed against screaming unclean vocals. So far I’ve obsessively focused on their Artificial Selection (2018) album, which means I have another 15 years of their work to explore when I’m ready to move on.