Six moar spicy metal takes for your ass.

1.  Kurt Cobain didn't kill heavy metal.  David Geffen did.

    So Kurt Cobain made a cross-country trip into every radio station, MTV Video local programming station etc., all across the world and told them to stop playing Dio, Judas Priest and Manowar all by his lonesome?  No wonder he killed himself, his dogs were barkin at him to.

    Individual musicians can't do something like that.  Musicians don't just waltz into a media outlet and give jockeys marching orders on what not to play.  Corporate executives on the other hand, can.   I don't think heavy metal was "killed" in the 90s, but there was absolutely a concerted effort by the industry to kill this genre.  Part of it was the British press mentality of build something up and then knock it down.  There were some warriors withstanding it, and yes Pantera were one of them (while trying to hide the fact that they were a hair band at one point), but 1993-1998 was the biggest gaslighting attempt to put something out of business.  Nevermind didn't kill heavy metal, or even glam metal overnight.  Hell, Nevermind wasn't even an overnight success!  It debuted at #144 on Billboard it's first week.  Even Reign In Blood debuted higher than that (#127)! I'm pretty sure took Nevermind at least four months to reach the top of the charts.  Yeah yeah momentum, but it could have topped the charts in 3 months couldn't it?

    I would actually argue 1992 was THE most commercially successful year for metal.  A big chunk of that was Metallica of course, but there was also Aerosmith, Ozzy, Megadeth's Countdown To Extinction, Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power was making waves in the underground, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden had plenty of sonic appeal to metal itself ("Jesus Christ Pose" could have been on Painkiller, fite me).  Hell some people look back on Iron Maiden's Fear Of the Dark as a success (those people are nuts, but I digress)!

    The "death" of metal was a concerted effort by music industry executives and shithead press scumbags.  Not some heroin addicted slacker. 

2. For that matter, the 90s didn't kill heavy metal either.  The 00s did.

    This is Chinese communist propaganda spread by Vh1.  While, yes thrash did technically die, the truth is all the great riffs and albums were made by the time 91 rolls around.  Everyone just ran out of ideas.  As for classic heavy metal, more or less the same story with Iron Maiden, Dio, Ozzy etc.,  Really, I would argue heavy metal just evolved naturally into power metal, (i.e. Running Wild, Iced Earth, Gamma Ray etc.)  While there was an industry fatwa of sorts, creatively, thrashing withstanding, metal just kept on evolving.  Especially in the underground.  Granted if you hate extreme metal the 90s might seem like it had less to offer, but if I can find these bands, you can find these bands.

    But then Slipknot and nu-metal happened, and it seemed like more of a crime to try and have 80s characteristics during that decade than in the previous one!  It's not even a matter of zoomers and millenials being brainwashed by tiktok, it's that if you dared to not completely base yourself around Korn and Pantera, you had no shot of making music that wasn't a bedroom project.  And the growls.  Those awful, awful HIV positive growls that despite supposedly being more "masculine" than Bruce Dickinson, somehow upped the estrogen levels of the entire male generation of the past 25 years.  You know, I have to admit, Phil Anselmo is underrated as a vocalist.  and I'm not even talking about Cowboys From Hell, that Phil died somewhere during the Vulgar tour.  I mean the fact that he can blend singing with distorted vocals seamlessly.  At no point listening to classic Pantera (or Down either) did I feel like Phil was switching from clean to distortion like some fleshy guitar player.  He just did things and it all felt like singing in some form or another. You did NOT get that with Killswitch Engange, Trivium, Mastodon, certainly not the horrible symphonic metal bands with "beauty and the beast" bullshit.

    Metal is, in my opinion, only just now recovering with the rise of 21st century heavy metal revival bands, known online as New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal.  (I hate this colloquialism for the same reason I hate NWOBHM).  We can only hope some crazy pro-heavy metal David Geffen of our own will bully the core bands out of the mainstream and the likes of the Towers, Sumerlands into the mainstream.  Ghost and Sabaton must be given credit for fixing the road nu-metal potholed to shit, let's hope these new bands aren't so addicted to video games that they can run a decent 5K.

3. NWOBHM (Second Wave Heavy Metal) hasn't aged well vocally.

    Look, we all love Angel Witch, Diamond Head and Witchfinder General, but the vocals on those records were so, so wimpy.  They made glam vocalists sound like thrash vocalists.  Pretty much the only ones that still sound great today are Bruce Dickinson, Paul Di'Anno (R.I.P.), Joe Elliot and Brian Ross.  You can't be too surprised that zoomers are calling these bands "dad rock" (which you should still beat the shit out of them for saying.  It's "granddad rock" get it right you soy-boys.)  Not the best aging production either, but it's not like Bob Rock and Rick Rubin were going around offering reverb-free guitar sounds for dirt cheap in 1980.  Hell they even make Tobias Forge's Ghost vocals (a near-fatal flaw in that band for me) sound ballsier (half a testicle, but still).  There's a reason why Metallica was able to co-opt Second Wave Heavy Metal obscurities for themselves.  Even his lousy pre-Nickelback Waylon Jennings voice on It's Electric has more oomph to it.  We need to accept this and adjust our expectations accordingly.

4. Guitar solos would have made nu-metal untouchable.

Fact:  Without Rage Against The Machine, nu-metal as we know it wouldn't exist.  Those bands very much took to Tim and Brad's grooves, Zach's vocals, and Tom's riffs.....but not his solos.  And I have never, ever understood why.  Say what you want about Tom Morello, nobody sounded like him.  He was a completely original style, and arriving when he did, it felt like "this is the new style of lead playing."  Like Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix before him, Tom Morello would dictate that the new lead break would be half-traditional guitar solo, half DJ scratch.

    Except that didn't happen at all.  All the upcoming nu-metal bands, through some misguided direction, seemed to think Nirvana and grunge said that guitar solos weren't ok anymore (even though there are solos all over the classic grunge records), and so they just didn't play them. Ever.  It was recently revealed that Mick Thompson planned to have guitar solos all over the Slipknot s/t but Joey Jordison and Ross Robinson nixed that idea (shouldn't Joey have been told "shut up you fucking drummer?")  I will die on the hill that if those first two Slipknot albums had guitar solos they would be as universally loved as any of the classic Maiden, Metallica or Slayer albums.   And even though Limp Bizkit was a cancer, if you knew nothing about them and saw Wes Borland, you'd think "that guy lays down some sick leads," wouldn't you?  This stupid anti-solo sentiment would of course, culminate with Metallica "dating [St. Anger] to this time period."  

    Guitar solos matter.  I'm tired of people pretending they don't. Do you know what Stairway To Heaven, Comfortably Numb, All Along The Watchtower and Freebird have in common?  They would all objectively be the worst songs of each respective band if they weren't saved by their guitar solos.  Do they need to be super technical?  No.  Do they need to be 50 different Arabian scales in a 69/71 time signature?  No. Do they need to be a million miles a minute?  No.  They just need to be there.  That's it.  How you choose to play them is up to you.

5. Thrash died with Riley Gale, and it should stay dead.

    I feel thrash, being the closest true underground sub-genre to ever have any sort of mainstream success, is cursed.  Forget Metallica, the other 3 of the big 4 (and to some extent other thrash bands) made it to mainstream arenas, mainstream avenues.  These were bands that the average Joe-fuckface knew the names of.  Death and black metal never really made it that far.  I loved Ace Ventura: Pet Detective but I had no idea that was Cannibal Corpse for many, many years.  It could have been some fictional band for the film for all I know.  The furthest these two go in terms of mainstream are goth T-shirt stores at the mall, and even then I don't remember seeing a Cradle of Filth or Cannibal Corpse shirt there in years.  I could be wrong.

    So because thrash hit the mainstream, every time there's a "comeback" we all have a subconscious hope that it will crack the mainstream and play award shows and late night and those sorts of things, but it never does.  And when thrashers realize this, they quietly quit the current crop and we're back where we where in the mid 90s.  It just doesn't have the accessibility that classic heavy metal/NWOTHM has to normie ears that think metal is a bunch of guttural screaming.  Normies want singing. Not to mention, all the creativity regarding thrash has been explored.  People keep finding new twists on death and black metal and that's why it stays "relevant" to the underground, good or bad (most of it bad).  The closest we came to a mainstream thrash resurgence was Power Trip, and then Riley died, and unlike AC/DC, they don't seem all that motivated to continue on without him.  Yeah they got a new guy, but he's just filling a role of vocalist for a touring tribute act at this point.  Veteran thrash bands from all decades can still tour and such, but creatively, it's time is over, and we need to just accept it.

6. Lovebites next album should be a heavy metal album.

    "But Kai!" I hear you say,  "Lovebites already make heavy metal albums! They ARE a heavy metal band!  Every night they go 'We are Lovebites and we play heavy metal!'"  

    Yea....about that.  I was scanning comments looking for constructive criticisms, as I am want to do with all the bands I love, and one struck me: 'These chicks claim they play heavy metal, but they really play power metal!  Not the same thing.'  And they're right.  There is a difference between Dio and Dragonforce.  We all know there's a difference between the two.  'Heavy metal' as the eternal sub-genre is called, isn't supposed to be a million miles an hour with classical scales.  At least not for a whole album  'Heavy metal' is more slow and midpaced than fast.  A fast song or two per album is fine here and there, but Lovebites albums are objectively more fast than they are slow.  And I think that needs to switch.  Look, we're at album #5 here.  This is a critical junction for bands.  It's where the world decides whether you are one of the all time greats or just a one trick pony.  And I don't want Lovebites to be written off as just another power metal band, albeit from Japan.    I don't need another Holy War, or another When Destines Align, or another Soldier Stands Solitarily.  It's not as if they haven't ventured outside of that box, there's plenty of examples: Empty Daydream, Epilogue, A Frozen Serenade, Dancing With The Devil, My Orion, The Bell In The Jail from the latest EP.  The ladies are more than capable of slowing down.  

     At the very least, if they are going to play fast, they should play thrash.  I know I just said thrash is dead but there's exceptions to the rule.  Thrash as played by a power metal band is going to have a different seasoning than what Warbringer and Enforced are doing.

    I love Lovebites to death I'm not 100% convinced they "get it."  I mean back on Battle Against Damnation, Miho tried writing a NWOBHM tribute song and all she really did was copy Aces High.  NWOBHM does not mean rip off Iron Maiden. It means rip off Angel Witch. I want someone to actually sit them down with the classics of Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and all the other 'heavy metal' cornerstones and have them soak them in.  I guess these days some assbag elitists would claim those are more "rock than metal."  Well maybe that's the answer, more rock than metal.  Hell the latest Tower, Let There Be Dark, I think would be a great guideline.  I feel like a dad telling their teenage daughter to slow down while giving driving lessons.

    Some might accuse me of telling Lovebites to wimp out to expand their audience.  I say I'm trying to get them to expand their palette and become multi-faceted.   Again, I love Lovebites' (I love typing that) take on power metal itself, but I don't need any more songs like it.  And I certainly don't need ignorant fools calling them the female Dragonforce, which they've never been.  They've been the female Helloween.  But even Helloween have Gorgar, Angels, A Little Time and A Million To One.