#sevendust

Sonny Mayo, guitarrista que estuvo en Snot y Sevendust, se recupera actualmente de una operación a corazón abierto tras sufrir un infarto. La noticia sobre Sonny Mayo ha trascendido después de que se pusiera en marcha una campaña solidaria a través de Meal Train para ayudar al músico y a su pareja durante el proceso de recuperación. En el mensaje publicado por la organizadora Megan Wright puede…

I Went Down A 00s Hard Rock Rabbit Hole…

During the early to mid-00s, I was just a wee lad, and I was only just starting to get into music, but my musical journey began with emo and pop-punk. I say that, because for other people, the journey can begin with other genres of music, such as classic rock, heavy metal, or hard rock. I wanted to talk about the latter, because that’s a style of music that’s a bit of a blind spot for me. I never got into a lot of those bands, so I only started hearing them around a decade after I started getting into music (which is another decade prior to now). My buddy @jakeh2987 introduced me to a lot of bands in this vein (hopefully you’re reading this, and if so, hope you’re doing well, man, it’s been awhile), and I wanted to talk about some albums that I picked up recently in that vein.

I haven’t really listened to this type of music in awhile, and instead of reviewing each album individually, I thought I would talk about them in a large piece. I found these albums online, as well as at my local Goodwill; someone donated their entire collection, because I got more than just some hard-rock and metal, including some alternative, indie, and pop. I wanted to talk about the alt-metal and hard rock I got, as well as some stuff I got at Half Price Books recently. Like with my last rabbit hole piece, I’m just going to talk about each album individually, albeit briefly.

Seether - Karma And Effect (2005)

I’ve never really listened to a lot of the South African band Seether, but I saw a copy of 2005’s Karma And Effect and decided to pick it up, just out of pure curiosity. I’m happy I did, but out of everything I got, I would say I’m into this the least. It’s a decent album, but it’s got a few issues that really prevent me from loving it. Their vocalist and guitarist, Shaun Morgan, isn’t a bad vocalist, but his vocals are kind of lackluster in spots. He has the same cadence throughout the entire album, and this album is around an hour. It’s a bit of a long player, and because of how derivative it sounds, it just feels really boring, albeit not half bad. I don’t outright dislike this, or anything, but it’s an album that I may need to sit with more.

Chevelle - Wonder What’s Next

I’ve always had some slight issues with Chicago hard rock / alt-metal band Chevelle, namely that their sound just isn’t very catchy, despite it being very heavy and groovy. I decided to pick up 2002’s second album, and major label breakthrough Wonder What’s Next to see if I could get more into them after all these years. I listened to their last album, and it didn’t do much for me, but I wanted to get back into them to see if some of their earlier albums might cut it for me. Honestly, I like Wonder What’s Next quite a bit, but it’s not a very catchy or super energetic album. They remind me a lot of Deftones, who I really haven’t been able to get that into (they’re cool, but not a band I go towards), because their sound is more atmospheric and ethereal, versus being huge, catchy, and fun. The band is cool, and I like their sound a lot, but their songs don’t usually have a lot of big hooks to them, so I’m just not gravitating towards this one as much.

Sevendust - Next (2005)

I’ll admit that I wasn’t super familiar with Sevendust going into this album, only having heard an album or two of theirs, but I really liked this one. They definitely lean into nu-metal, and it’s surprisingly heavy. The thing with this one is that it’s nothing that special, but it’s done very well. I’ve been playing it here and there throughout the last couple of weeks. They actually just dropped a new album a few weeks back, but I haven’t listened to it yet. I ought to check it out, but this is a great start to getting into these guys. I wish I had more to say, but this album is cool. The only real downside is that both the CD copy I got and the only version on streaming are edited, which isn’t super distracting, but it’s weird that’s edited.

Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists (2005)

Disturbed is a band that I’m super mixed on; I thought their last album was kind of bad, both because of how boring it was and how the lyrics were super vague about their political messaging, so it rubbed me the wrong way. Vocalist David Draiman would also go onto be very polarizing and give me a sour taste in my mouth when he expressed his support for Israel during their war with Gaza. I picked up a couple of their albums, including 2005’s Ten Thousand Fists and 2015’s Immortalized. Both of these albums are important, but we’ll talk about the former first, and this was them at their prime in the early 00s.

It’s a pretty fun nu-metal album, albeit it doesn’t do or say anything that other bands already didn’t do. Hell, their first two albums sounded the same, but I still like it. Their cover of Genesis’ “Land Of Confusion” is pretty cool, but this album is basically 00s nu-metal that sounds like everything else at the time. I hate to say that, but there’s just nothing here that rises above the rest, especially in comparison to other stuff I’ve been into lately. This album has its moments, and it’s got a cool sound, but due to the album being a more generic sounding album and it being kind of long, I haven’t been coming back to this as much as I’d like to.

Disturbed - Immortalized (2015)