I remember those times very well. It was in some ways my prime. I turned 15 in 2005 and thus was I part of that entire decade's ups and downs. Most "true" metalheads like myself did not really appreciate the metalcore scene all that much. In retrospect I've grown to love some bands that were lumped in with that scene (Chimaira, DevilDriver, etc.), but the bulk of it was really bad.
Idols at 16: Megadeth (1986) - Chris Poland, Gar Samuelson, Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson
In 2006 I was a full-blown thrasher. I had grown very fond of 80's thrash in 2005 and by the next year I was listening to it 24/7 (I literally used to sleep with headphones back then). I was fanboying early Megadeth (Peace Sells era) above all else and I particularly took a liking to "rawer" thrash bands. I liked thrash bands with heavy influences from Motörhead, rather than the polished and more technical stuff like Megadeth did with Rust in Peace. I did not, however, follow any modern metal scenes and was totally unaware of what was cooking beneath the surface.
By 2008 something just exploded. From seemingly out of nowhere came hundreds of young new bands that played classic thrash metal. It was like a sonic revolution. For years everybody had been talking about how bad metalcore was and how they hated it, including my own band, but it took several years for anyone to properly react. By the time it came, however, it came down hard and without showing any mercy.
Warbringer, Evile, Lich King, Bonded By Blood, Hexen, Gama Bomb, Municipal Waste, Suicidal Angels... The list goes on. So many bands, no air time, no major labels, low budgets - but a massive fanbase and a huge thurst for the return of a rebellious saviour. It was like an old scene had returned with new blood overnight. But looking at it in retrospect, it was probably the scene's big mistake.
With so many bands coming from out of nowhere that fast, you suddenly had a bunch of new killer records and live tours to catch. At the same time, however, it became like a ridiculous case of bands adapting to a bunch of copy-and-paste formulas. There simply was next to no originality within the revival scene. Bands sounded closer to being tribute acts of their number one favorite band rather than doing their own thing. Now that is not essentially a bad thing, but when everybody does it that way it gets tiresome quickly.
Before you knew it, the thrash metal revival had gone back to the deepest underground whence it came. It lasted for what, two solid years? Even that long? Talk about 15 minutes of fame. What made the original wave of thrash metal so great was how it was something new, something innovative. It was fresh and dangerous. The problem with the revival was how all those bands and musicians had gained great amounts of skill, only to use it for reproducing a certain sound rather than develop and explore their own creativity. Nobody wants to hear twenty Kreator wankers.
So after coming up real hard and heavy the entire movement basically plummeted right back down the abyss. It went from being one of the coolest things to happen in metal history to being one of the most ridiculous ones. But even though its initial impact didn't have more than a minor lasting relevance, it did ultimately leave another, much greater, impact.
So what can we possibly learn from this musical history? The way I've put it we should basically just avoid playing music altogether. If you're a skilled musician copying your idols down to the notes and styles, you'll never last. If you're part of a more original subgenre (metalcore) then you simply suck and should call it quits already. But hey, surprise surprise, that's not really what I'm suggesting.
The only thing I'm scared of right now is to see what happens next. We're closing in on the end of this decade, which often means new trends and whatnot lies ahead in the wake of the next one. This decade has been plagued with deathcore and dare I say that it generally sucks way harder than metalcore ever did? And similarily to the thrash revival towards the end of the last decade, we've now got something of an "old school death metal revival" instead. I love death metal. Way more than I love thrash. I don't want to see it end up like the thrash revival did, although I'm pretty sure the death revival has already outlasted it (and has more originality). Time will tell!
