2020 marks ten years that I’ve been head over heels for the genre of Metal. Whether it be Post-Hardcore, Metalcore, Deathcore, Djent, or anything in-between, there’s a wide variety of bands that I have come to love the past decade. It’s a far cry from my childhood where I was only exposed to what was on the radio, typically opting for alternative and pop, but it wasn’t until 2010 that I took the plunge into the Metal subgenres that I obsess over today.

My earliest evidence of this would be the fact that my first physical CD that I received was a Megadeth Greatest Hits CD, with songs like “Peace Sells” and “Symphony of Destruction.” I was gifted this soon after playing Guitar Hero 2, a Christmas present I was initially uninterested in until I gave it dozens of hours of playtime. One of the hardest songs in the game, Megadeth’s “Hangar 18,” was so catchy to me through its blistering solo, its dark lyrics, and its overall difficulty.

That difficulty would come to be one of my most sought-after details in music. The fact that only a small percentage of musicians can achieve such great heights in the skill ceiling of instrumentation with just their two hands and their mind is mesmerizing to me. It’s why I enjoy such complicated, obtuse bands like Berried Alive, Rings of Saturn, and Infant Annihilator. Acts that are nigh impossible to replicate, while still maintaining an enjoyable sound, are few and far.

Aside from general prowess, Metal scratches an itch that other genres can’t for me. With such a great lyrical emphasis on angst, revenge, and the state of the world, the message always succeeds in getting across in many Metal bands. It could be the politically-charged agenda of Rage Against the Machine, the pondering thematic tone from The Contortionist, or the straight-up frustration in Structures. There’s always something the listener can vibe with.

My focus on the Post-Hardcore/Metalcore stems from being introduced to Attack Attack! and The Devil Wears Prada in 2010 by a friend at school. The experimentation at hand was mind-blowing to me with how these bands implemented a synthesizer, honed in on crushing breakdowns, and had palatable unclean vocals that I wanted to replicate. While screaming is the main detractor of Metal, it spoke to me in a transformative time of my life. I wanted to do it too, so I practiced and let out so much emotion in doing so in my car rides.

While I branched out even further in music throughout the middle of the 2010s, I always stuck to my guns. Some of my favorite bands over the years (Sleeping With Sirens, The Color Morale, and Dance Gavin Dance) may have switched up their sound and even gone by the wayside, but I will always recall the memories I have of getting through high school/college with the memories of Metal.

I’m as thrilled as ever to continue to write about the genre, which hasn’t slowed down at all. Every new article is a new adventure with a talented set of individuals, and I look forward to touting my love for metal for the foreseeable future!

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