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[miko2]

Today's Song: What Drives the Weak (The War Within) by Shadows Fall

Shadows Fall is one of those bands that a lot of people like to hate. They get tagged with the terms "metalcore" and "emo" which to many means "not metal" and "sucky music". And part of this hatred is because this kind of music has been very popular the last few years, and kind of descended from nu metal in some ways or replaced it. It falls into what skyoxford calls "mall rock" -- the kind of stuff that young kids like my nephew tend to listen to. Metalcore also descends from hardcore (which descended from punk) and typically doesn't have guitar solos. Also, as described by Wikipedia:

"

Central to the bands of the genre, quite a few of which eschew verse-chorus songwriting, is the breakdown. Typically, a breakdown consists of slowing a song down, usually to half time, giving the guitars room to play a set of rhythmically oriented riffs, usually on open strings so as to achieve the lowest sound for which the guitars are tuned. These riffs are often accented by the drummer through double bass drums and use of the china cymbal."

Although I would never claim to be a very big fan of the genre, I've run across a few songs by these bands that I like. In particular, Shadows Fall is a band that crosses genres and has a more legitimate claim to being a metal band than most metalcore bands. Also, I find it silly when people dismiss an entire genre, because no matter where you draw the line, not every band falls neatly on one side or the other.

One interesting side note is that Shadows Fall apparently bases a lot of their songwriting on spiritual topics, specifically Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. So for what it's worth, I've found another potential candidate for a "Buddhist metal" band, although the band is from the United States. This is interesting because so many American metalcore bands are Christian. I think that's where the "emo" tag comes in -- the sung choruses and the focus on spiritual matters, belief, and personal struggle. But this tag gets thrown around a lot, especially to describe anything a non-emo person hates. As Wikipedia puts it:

"In an even more expanded way than in the 90s, emo has come to encompass an extremely wide variety of bands, many of whom have very little in common. The term has become so broad that it has become nearly impossible to describe what exactly qualifies as "emo"."

And:

"The classification of bands as "emo" is often controversial. Fans of several of the listed bands have recoiled at the use of the "emo" tag,and have gone to great lengths to explain why they don't qualify as "emo". In many cases, the term has simply been attached to them because of musical similarities, a common fashion sense, or because of the band's popularity within the "emo" scene, not because the band adheres to emo as a music genre."

Anyway -- I like this particular song by Shadows Fall at the moment. It rocks, and that's all I care about.

Shadows Fall - What Drives the Weak (The War Within)