Counterpoint: Benighted’s New Record Is Awesome

One by one, a bunch of my acquaintances have shelled me for my love of that movie Spring Breakers. It was last year at this time that I’d had a good feeling about the bikini-sploitation film, then saw it and loved it, saw it again, and spread recommendations around with a vibe of “I know right? Wtf?”

My people were skeptical but because I was emphatic, they slowly made their way to watch it. The feedback, as I wrote above, was scorching: My dear Annabel deemed it the “stupidest movie ever” [sic]; my brah Taylor publicly mourned the loss of the time he’d spent viewing it; others rained insults on me via text even as it played in their living rooms. Whoops.

But hey, these are opinions, ones based on personal experience, context, and timing. Their reactions didn’t change my mind. My life is different from theirs; we relate to different stuff. It was easy to accept my place among the local minority on the issue of Spring Breakers. lol

However, I suspect that I represent what will be the majority opinion of Benighted’s awesome new album, Carnivore Sublime. Still, I went all PTSD for a second from echoes of the Spring Breakers debate upon reading our review that ran Wednesday here on MetalSucks. In it, I had run up against another dismissal based on exteriors, a reduction of a masterful work in a genre that tastemakers are quick to suspect. But to our awesome reviewer, Benighted’s jam was another cliche, a low-creativity, trendy also-ran. And like my anti-bikini/absurdist crime/fever-dream/epic buds, my MS brah was expressing his own vibe. No biggie.

So here’s my vibe: I most emphatically re-submit Carnivore Sublime for your review. (I would’ve done so last week, but I was busy listening to it like a dozen times in a few days. It’s very catchy.) To those who already agree or disagree with our review, I say go about your life. To the rest of you, I ask: U jam? And will you join me for a viewing of Spring Breakers?

Benighted’s Carnivore Sublime came out Tuesday on Season Of Mist. Order here and here.