Breakdowns and Metal Snobbery

There was a time a few years ago when all anybody could ask for in metal was a good breakdown, but it seems like there are some who have turned on the very breakdowns that brought metal back from the dead.  There seems to be this attitude these days that breakdowns are bad and that any band that does them is inferior to bands that don’t.  I am pretty sick of this attitude and I gotta say something about it. 

It seems now a days that any band that does a breakdown, no matter what genre of metal, gets “-core” tagged on to whatever they do.  It’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.  Metallica, Pantera, Meshuggah, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Cannibal Corpse, Children of Bodom etc there are tons of “respected” metal bands that do plenty of breakdowns and nobody ever accuses them of being unoriginal, uncreative or hard-core!  There is no place where this is more prevalent than in the death metal.  Death metal has come back in a big way, and part of that is breakdowns and people just need to accept that the days of Cannibal Corpse type Thrashy death metal (which had breakdowns) is over and it’s never coming back.  The turn of the century has brought about a new wave of metal from all over the world and many of these bands love breakdowns in varying degrees and thats the way it is.  If you don’t like it then accept that metal as a genre has moved on without you.  Unless you’d rather have a Nu-metal come back.  In addition, thrash, the most popular of metal styles is by definition the mixing of metal and punk.  Sounds pretty familiar to a trend going on today.

Put up or shut up.

~ by theroan on July 14, 2008.