DOUG MOORE IS A SMART DUDE

Metalcore is an annoying trend. Still, as the saying goes: hate the game, not the playa. Or something.

In his recent review of Killswitch Engage’s As Daylight Dies, Doug Moore writes:

“Some metalheads feel that KsE is some sort of unforgivable metal blaspheme because of their combination of breakdowns and clean vocal hooks with Euro-flavored thrash guitar work. Others take this a step further: because KsE (and their hordes of admittedly-irritating copycats) isn’t a representative of “real metal,” they misrepresent metal to the world at large and thus offend metal’s holy honor or some such. Personally both reasons strike me as total bunk. Firstly, it was always my impression that metal was all about blasphemy; what drew me to this genre was its willingness to disregard rules, push boundaries and evolve organically. Emplacing regulations about what metal should and shouldn’t be stands in direct contradiction to what makes it so awesome in the first place (besides, breakdowns and clean vocals were both part of metal long before this latest wave of crossover). Secondly, bands like Killswitch Engage are, quite frankly, fucking necessary for underground metal to grow and flourish. If you don’t enjoy their music, so be it, but I can’t see how people can deny their value to the metal community. The metalcore explosion may have spawned a new generation of awkward teenage pit ninjas, but invariably a percentage of those will move on to heavier pastures, and the massive growth of underground metal over the past five years certainly bears witness to this fact. You fuckers who bemoan this band’s existence at every opportunity should learn to recognize a useful thing when you see one.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. No, seriously: if I could have written that, I would have, but I didn’t.

Read the rest of Moore’s review and MetalReview.com.

-AR