FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Hellbound Metal: “So if you’re looking for something to get you amped at the gym or some such physical activity, BornBroken should do the trick. The Healing Powers of Hate seethes with that kind of adrenaline boosting capacity. And there’s always a market for that.”
There’s hardly any filler to be found here, not even a short, throwaway instrumental track. Tribus was one of the latter great albums of 2010, one that I’m sorry to have missed until well into 2011.
Despite the fact that co-headliner In Flames was playing last on this night, the unforgiving concrete floor was packed with bodies in the moments before Killswitch took the stage, and the joint practically exploded when the five dudes kicked into the tasteful melodic metalcore of “My Last Serenade”, Jones and his rather flamboyant counterpart, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, leading the charge.
Adrien Begrand reviews the recent Saskatoon stop on the current In Flames/Killswitch Engage tour. Howard Jones, we hope you are feeling better now!
The following metal/hard rock reviews were published yesterday in Hamilton’s VIEW Magazine and while they are online, it is with a bunch of indie rock reviews so I decided to throw just the metal/hard rock-related ones up on Hellbound…
Whether it’s because they have definite hardcore roots, forming as they did from the ashes of Overcast, Aftershock and, later, Blood Has Been Shed, or because they have choruses that sound more like globules of liquid sugar instead of caustic battery acid, Massachusetts’ Killswitch Engage has always had troubles being accepted by metalheads across the board. Arguments range from “they’re metalcore/screamo/not metal therefore they suck” to “they may be metal, but they suck” and other such subjectivity disguised as scene police fact. That they’ve gone ahead and managed two certified gold records in the U.S. means that the underground has yet another reason to chastise them beyond the speciousness of arguments surrounding what genre they call home.
Kevin Stewart-Panko discusses KSE’s second self-titled album and their rise to modest fame with band guitarist Joel Stroetzel.
Killswitch Engage’s latest and self-titled album showcases in many ways what has come to be expected from the band. The formula hasn’t changed much — straight and to-the-point metalcore with lots of clean lead guitars and bursts of drums. However, this time there’s more angst than usual in the lyrics, and definitely attempts at making the incredibly short songs sound suitably epic.