Ok so I have to admit when "Screamo" first started making an appearance in the music scenes in North America, I was intrigued. But as we all know it started being the new "it" thing in the music business and everyone and their fucking dog started playing screamo in their suburban garages with expensive equipment bought by lawyer mom and doctor dad.
It was about this time that many "screamo" bands tried to separate themselves from other screamo bands by becoming more metal, more pop or learning acrobats to perform on stage. And somewhere along the lines it became ok for shitty bands to be just that, shitty. In comes Escape The Fate, a 2005 addition the Epitaphs ever growing and mostly shitty* line up of bands. According to Wikipedia Escape the Fate, "prided itself, above all else, on an energetic and visceral live shows." That sounds about right because they're certainly not concentrating on becoming good song writers.
Why I feel the need to pick on Escape the Fate at this point, besides the fact that I just heard one of their songs on the radio, is because they are exactly the kind of band that I am talking about when I say "make up your mind" (see song The Guillotine). There are a million bands out there that feel that the more extreme they are on the metal side and the equal extreme of pop they demonstrate will put them a cut above. Wrong! It ends up sounding horrible. Imagine gutteral vocals overtop of really bad cheesy guitar licks and tossed around with a bit of emotional declarations of angst. I do realize that I just described most of the screamo bands out there, but crank up the shit factor to about 11 with Escape The Fate. Damn it! Just pick a genre and stick with it, especially if you're not that good in the first place. Get good at one thing at a time instead of being mediocre or bad at a bunch of different things.
There are bands out there that can combine many different genres and make it sound good but my guess is that they've been playing music for longer than these screamo kids have been alive. They're veteran musicians and can do it well. My suggestion to these bands is to play music for a lot longer and then think about (re)creating a genre. No matter how good you think you are, you're not.
It was about this time that many "screamo" bands tried to separate themselves from other screamo bands by becoming more metal, more pop or learning acrobats to perform on stage. And somewhere along the lines it became ok for shitty bands to be just that, shitty. In comes Escape The Fate, a 2005 addition the Epitaphs ever growing and mostly shitty* line up of bands. According to Wikipedia Escape the Fate, "prided itself, above all else, on an energetic and visceral live shows." That sounds about right because they're certainly not concentrating on becoming good song writers.
Why I feel the need to pick on Escape the Fate at this point, besides the fact that I just heard one of their songs on the radio, is because they are exactly the kind of band that I am talking about when I say "make up your mind" (see song The Guillotine). There are a million bands out there that feel that the more extreme they are on the metal side and the equal extreme of pop they demonstrate will put them a cut above. Wrong! It ends up sounding horrible. Imagine gutteral vocals overtop of really bad cheesy guitar licks and tossed around with a bit of emotional declarations of angst. I do realize that I just described most of the screamo bands out there, but crank up the shit factor to about 11 with Escape The Fate. Damn it! Just pick a genre and stick with it, especially if you're not that good in the first place. Get good at one thing at a time instead of being mediocre or bad at a bunch of different things.
There are bands out there that can combine many different genres and make it sound good but my guess is that they've been playing music for longer than these screamo kids have been alive. They're veteran musicians and can do it well. My suggestion to these bands is to play music for a lot longer and then think about (re)creating a genre. No matter how good you think you are, you're not.
It sure does feel good to vent.
Banana
*with the exception of
Atmosphere
Bad Religion
The Bouncing Souls
Cadence Weapon
Converge
Danger Doom
I Am Ghost
The Locust
The Matches
Millencolin
Motion City Soundtrack
Pennywise
Pulley
Some Girls
Vanna
The Weakerthans
Thank you and good night!
Banana
