Killswitch Engage are one of my all time favorite bands. I was first turned onto them by my friend Adam back in 2002 when their amazing, incredible, undeniable sophomore album Alive Or Just Breathing was released. That record is still to me one of the best modern metal records. It set forth an entire genre of imitators and no one has caught up since.
Recently I was speaking to my friend Patrick, who has some serious taste in music, and when I asked if he liked KSE he said he wasn't really into them, that they seemed to be part of the whole Hot Topic heavy metal crowd. This caught me by surprise for a few reasons; one is that he has never steered me wrong on a musical recommendation in almost ten years. The other is because to me, this band was just incredible and I couldn't believe to some people they are lumped in with some seriously bad music, the whole style came directly from KSE which automatically puts them on another level and above the rest of the fakers.
A few weeks ago I figured it out. Killswitch Engage is the Bad Religion of the new wave of American heavy metal. Let me explain. Back in 1988 Bad Religion put out their greatest record, Suffer. This album was an improvement on their earlier recordings in every way and is, in my opinion, the best punk rock record ever made. Since that time, and especially in the mid-1990's, there were legions of bands doing the whole "California melodic punk rock" sound (Pennywise, NOFX, No Use For A Name, Strung Out, etc). They were all doing some variation of the sound Bad Religion had developed (fast, high quality punk rock, great production and a focus on melody and harmonies). Some, at least to me, did it very well (Pennywise) and some not as well, as you would expect.
I once read an interview with Bad Religion in which they overheard someone saying "all those California bands sound the same, I don't listen to Bad Religion or NOFX." And BR responded by saying "that is OUR sound...we don't sound like all those bands, that sound like us." And they were right, this style of punk rock was invented and perfected by Bad Religion and they are still doing it better than everyone else. They are the greatest punk rock band of all time in my opinion.
So, in the same way Bad Religion's Suffer set off a string of events leading to an over saturated genre with potentially annoying fans, Killswitch Engage's Alive or Just Breathing did the same thing with metal (with maybe Unearth being their Pennywise).
And I'd like to thank PK for helping me come to this long-winded but fun to discuss conclusion.
The track "Numbered Days" is the opening song on the aforementioned record.
Killswitch Engage - Numbered Days
This is pretty much what metalcore has done with Converge's sound. Jane Doe is effectively a genre-defining record and much of what has come out since has been fairly derivative in that vein. It doesn't mean it's all bad (I quite enjoy Norma Jean's first couple of records), but the punk speed and metal chugga-chugga combo seems to go back to the early Converge records culminating in Jane Doe. But maybe I don't know enough about metalcore.
Posted by: Patrick | 09/20/2010 at 05:44 PM
Completely agree with the Converge thing. No doubt.
Posted by: Gregory Parker | 09/30/2010 at 11:08 AM