I AM BACK! Today’s rant consists of the argument against metal that cannot be played live as it is on the album, as it to complex, heavy, or just outright too programmed, and why I think there is an argument for it. Why, you, the ever inquisitive reader, might ask? Simple: NOBODY ASKED ME?!
Just recently I was witness to a tour currently running for As Blood Runs Black, which features on the list of bands Rings of Saturn. This band has been the center of a controversy circle pit due to the fact that the albums are programmed for bass, drums, and the guitars are sped up and notes are tracked to make the solos, breakdowns, tapping, and sweeps become something that is literally not possible in the physical plane. And that sucks. Listen to Natural Selection, embedded below, and tell me how much you wish your fingers could contort to that level:
Right?! Fucking awesome! Now, live, Rings of Saturn is still one of the heaviest bands you can go see, I am not denying that. However, live, they just aren’t able to do this speed and note density, due to no one on earth having that dexterity and timing. Its nigh impossible, hence the need to make it heavier on the albums, and raise expectation as well. It’s just a side effect of making something you can’t hope to play, but it’s what the artist pictures. There’s your trade off: make something playable that doesn’t capture what the artist(s) wants, or make something so complex/fast/technical that there is no hope in hell that it can be played to that level without digital enhancement, which is impossible in a live venue with a band only.
Now, I need to draw a distinction of my opinion: Bands that are trying to make something they can very nearly play on stage are awesome, keep that up; bands that make things that they can’t play, intentionally, because they are brutallz/heavyees/complex just because I am cooler than you, get hit by a bus. These two opinions are extreme, in that lots of people disagree, for or against either. Again, they aren’t typing in the public forum under their own name, so fuck them. I’ll start by fleshing out the latter. If you’re going to make music, and you can’t play it, in some form or another, even if its not ideal but I can totally see the effort and talent on display, not because its not your gear (I understand you cant exactly play something made for a 7/8 string on a 6 string if you’ve never written it with that in mind) or effects are integral but because you literally can’t play it on an instrument. You created something so complex you can’t show it off without a computer. And I am not talking about DJs or that bullshit, I am talking about metal, the thing you play with those things called instruments that make the sounds. Lots of work went into something, and you can’t play it because that’s impossible. That’s like inventing a car that goes 300mph on vegetable oil, but can’t ever stop. It’s useless.
Rings of Saturn put obvious work into their stuff, as shown by the absolute ripping around they do on those dual 8 strings. Their live drummer is an absolute beast, and I am pretty sure he sprouts octopus legs to do some of the bass rhythm work to back up the shreddery on stage. It’s an onslaught of beat down music, and the singer blows many vocalists out of the water with the bass and duration of his growls. Individually, they each have the talent to play at reckless speeds, with abandon, and not worry about if hey sound as brutal as their albums do. They are fucking heavy, and it no longer becomes an issue of being as fast or note for note. It stands on it’s own, and erases doubt to how good they are.
Creating music is a vain art, it’s meant to be shown off. Not just to glorify what you can do, but to be critiqued by peers, and to show your level of proficiency that you worked hard for. It reflects you as a creator, and what insanely dumb creator makes something unusable in practicality. The point becomes this: if you have dreams of performing live in front of all those nubile, metal chicks that are also cheerleaders/models (I can’t keep them off me), don’t make music that you have to playsync to, stand behind a laptop, or never perform live. You simply are doing a disservice to the genre(s) and probably making something that isn’t worth the effort.
*Note: I am talking about stuff that is guitar and instrument centric, not genres of extreme modulated sound, such as Industrial, Black Noise, Ambient, or similar. This is only for those jackoffs that think pro-tools make up for actual talent.*
