Friday 5: Hiatus Don’t Hate Us
Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, our awesome series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).
Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributor or by one of our buds (like you!). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting.
Here we go!
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THE FIVE
What are the best-case scenarios of a band hiatus?
THE LISTER
Anso DF, MetalSucks Senior Editor
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He Ie Legend
2009 – 2013
Why-atus? Bad business
News hit Thursday that a fancy beard metal band has entered the dreaded zone of inactivity called “hiatus.” Maybe it’s just a break, maybe it’s forever. The message is: Put to bed your expectations. But lest we fret, a long freeze of production may be a good thing. It might allow would-be fans to catch up with a band ahead of its time. It might let creativity pool and burst the dam of inertia. It might permit members to take care of business and get a decent night’s sleep. Fuck, it did wonders for He Is Legend, who just landed a $60k investment from an invigorated fan base for their third post-hiatus album. This in exchange for only a few years of uncertainty.
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Behemoth
2010 – 2014
Why-atus? Frontman’s grave illness
Behemoth’s long break was ended by their 2014 album The Satanist — a masterwork whose impact even now is being measured — and was started suddenly by a serious health issue. And though it resulted in a a new period of brilliance for a band flush with it, that’s not the reason that a fan might vote for another long period of rest before its follow-up; the specter of relapse haunts us.
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Cephalic Carnage
2010 – ?
Why-atus? Band got baked, forgot about band?
Cephalic Carnage’s most recent studio activity was at least six years ago. And it appears that they’ve performed precisely one fest date per year since 2013. Here in 2016, we can assume that the band has commented on their level of activity, but the fact that it hasn’t reached this fan is telling. These days, Cephalic’s juice couldn’t fill a thimble.
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Team Sleep
2005 – 2015*
Why-atus? Clusterfuck
Though Team Sleep should’ve rocketed out of the gates amid all the attention due a side project by Chino Moreno (Deftones) — once a novel thing — they stumbled and face-planted: A leak resulted in two debut albums, a quiet tour, and a decade-long break that continues despite a random, oddly named follow-up that was recorded live over a weekend. Lost in the noise are Team Sleep’s moments of brilliance. Will the whole band, too, be lost among Moreno’s 8000 other projects?
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God Forbid
2013 – ?
Why-atus? Over it
Years after a car wreck, we might not be certain of our perception of its cause and chronology. Did we strike or were we struck? Did the driver suffer a lapse of attention? Shit actually who even was driving? Were conditions poor and was visibility low? Did we overreact to a minor obstacle? Who knows. Someday it’ll feel right to get back on the road and surprised folks will cheer as we go by.
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Your turn! Have a great wknd!
