Shadows Fall

I have to confess, the Shadows Fall album I bought (Threads of Life) is starting to grow on me. I'm not normally a huge fan of metalcore, and the rap on Shadows Fall was (at least among the few metal aficionados that I know) that they were basically a somewhat-more-artistic-than-usual metalcore act.

And it must be said that there's metalcore, and then there's metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold I can generally get behind, but Hatebreed is a little too metalcore, if you know what I mean. After a while that hoarse tuneless hardcore shouting gets a little old, or a lot old, and even righteously metallic music isn't enough to keep me interested when that happens.

But Shadows Fall, it turns out, isn't really metalcore. What is it? It's an interesting mix of things. In my Bullshit Analysis (c), the music seems very strongly influenced by death metal, but the vocals tend to wander around. Sometimes it's a little deathy, sometimes it's straight metalcore, sometimes it's right on the edge of Hammerfall-style power metal, and sometimes it's its own thing entirely.

But it's good. Musically it's plenty hard and metallic, but the varying moods and vocal styles lend the overall album nice variety. It's neither entirely death metal nor hardcore nor power metal, but it's pretty much all good.

I also bought a straight death metal album, Slaughter of the Soup... no, make that Slaughter of the Soul. It's by At The Gates, and if you like Amon Amarth, you'll probably like this. It seems to be more crunchitudinous than Amon Amarth, but it's definitely in that class of metal. It also brings to mind In Flames, but a sort of alternate-history version of In Flames that didn't get all poppy (or poppy as death metal acts go, anyway).

But the song I wish to highlight tonight is "Going Under" by Devo, off the album The New Traditionalists. Devo doesn't get much credit these days for much of anything. They're widely (and perhaps properly) dismissed as a novelty or gag act, and I remember an interview with one of the founding members of Devo who confessed great surprise that they'd managed to pull off the joke for as long as they had.

So you think about Devo and you think of goofball gag dance songs like "Canary in a Coal Mine" or "Slap your Mammy" or "Whip It" or "Through Being Cool". But there's something strange, surreal and almost sinister about the song "Going Under". Devo songs always have a certain lightness of spirit, but not this one; it's like Devo under the influence of huge quantities of Vasopressin, or an extremely bad mood. I can't say I know what "Going Under" is about in a lyric sense - it's one of those things, like the novel VALIS by Philip K. Dick, that I always think will start to make sense if I just think about it a little bit harder, but even though it doesn't seem to make any objective sense, it's still weird and sinister.