I Am Not Ashamed

I have a confession to make. I. Was. A high-school metalhead. There. It's out in the open. Surprising. I know.

I suppose I should clarify. When I say that I was a high school metalhead, I must admit, that I was somewhat unlike other high school metalheads. I did not have a mullet. Nor did the recklessly defined curves of an IRocZ grace my drive way. Metal to me was not a lifestyle choice, but a musical one. So I listened to a lot of things that growled and grunted their way to some part of my brain that made me move my head up and down in a distinct banging motion. I even (heavens no!) went to a Metallica centric festival.

Towards the end of high school (and the beginning of college), the focus slowly shifted towards punk. The speed metal of Corrosion of Conformity (the first CoC albums I had were later albums, and had a more distinctly more melodic metal character. As I started buying their earlier stuff, I became aware of this particular facet of their "metalness") eased me into a very open place (albeit in a limited sense) musically, and to be frank, punk took advantage of me. I said no (not really), and it blasted through my brain anyways. The old Green Day tapes got replaced with CDs. I became familiar with Mr. T Experience. The Ataris. Ted Leo (still one of my favorites). Minor Threat. I was a punk/metal DJ at KUPS for four years, and failed to play any metal during that span. To have fallen so far....

And since then, things have moved further! Punk led to emo(ish) led to indie led to any number of things that I would have thrown anti-horns (anti-horns being the polar opposite to the horns that you see at a metal show. I suppose that would involve a single finger salute...) at in my raging high school metal days.

In any case. That's not the point of all this. The point is to reaffirm the metalness. Something that's popped up more in the past year or two. It seems that I've swung around full circle and am re embracing that particular part of my musical roots. But with a slight change. I seem to be more interested in the more cerebral metal. Odd time signatures. Complexity. Etc... Isis. Mastodon. Et. al.

And also a bit of hardcore. If you haven't heard Between The Buried and Me, it may be worth a listen. I'd be lying if I said that I had heard of them prior to randomly playing a song by them in Rock Band (the song was "Prequel to the Sequel"). It reminded me a lot of An Endless Sporadic which I heard (and loved) initially in Guitar Hero 3. But harder. And with growling.