Johnny Truant

This now defunct (why do I have such a fondness for bands that I can never see live again?) mob from sunny Brighton are most frequently pigeonholed as "metalcore".

As the name implies, this is the bastard hybrid of metal and hardcore. The trouble I have with the label is that as much as I like this sort of music, I only ever imagine metalcore as being the sum of the worst parts of metal and hardcore; those respectively being desperately twiddly guitar solos and embarrassing lyrics about doing chicks and rockin' all night long delivered in a piercing falsetto, and mindless chugging beatdown after beatdown after beatdown while a tattooed skinhead barks about solidarity and brotherhood and fighting people that stand in your way.

Naturally Johnny Truant offer none of these things, instead opting to take the better parts of each. And if that's all they did, then they would be a perfectly adequate band; metal without the pomposity, hardcore without the thuggishness.

But there's a little more to them than that, a sense of melody and progression that creeps through and entwines itself with all the savagery, making you realise that they're not just a hardcore band that spent time learning how to play their instruments instead of bench pressing. This is quite amply demonstrated in Foglights and The Weeping, Wailing And Gnashing Of Teeth, the two songs that close their very excellent final record No Tears For The Creatures.

They can still dish out a bludgeoning when they feel like it, though.

They were only around for a relatively short time (2002-2008), and whilst it seems unlikely that anyone else will consider them pioneers of the scene, I very much doubt we will see their likes again.

Website: http://johnnytruantband.wordpress.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/johnnytruant

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Truant

Goldie

What do I know about Goldie?

About as much as I know about drum 'n' bass in general. Which is to say, not an awful lot. But for some reason Saturnz Return is really doing it for me right now. Not the first disc, obviously; that consists of little more than a single hour-long track called Mother, that could well be the result of Goldie falling asleep at the mixing desk. But the second disc is full of this sort of thing.

Better still are his collaborations with other artists, such as this; the Toasted Both Sides Please mix of Swallowed by Bush, from their ill-conceived late nineties bandwagon-jumping remix album...

...and better still, this effort from the Spawn Soundtrack. Goldie + Rollins = Win.

I don't know much about drum 'n' bass, but I know what I like.

Website: http://www.metalheadz.co.uk/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/metalheadzltd

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldie

The Beta Band

I like to put videos in these posts. It's more enticing; a mere bit of hyperlinked text may not be tempting enough, but who could resist the promise of audio and visual stimulation?

It's not that easy though. I will normally encounter one of two problems when attempting to seek out suitable video to embed. The first is that there is simply too much wonderment that I want to share with the world. I mean, this is the greatest band in the world ever; how can I sum up all of their greatest musical achievements in a mere two or three videos?

The second, and sadly more common problem (as has been evident in previous posts) is that there is simply not enough decent video out there. Either the songs I want haven't been uploaded, or they have but the video is nothing more than a still image of the album artwork. Or worse still, the result of some shonky A-level media studies project.

With The Beta Band, I've kind of had both problems. There are so many great songs that I don't know which ones I most want to share; but that's irrelevant, because I can't find any decent video for them anyway. But I tried my best, and after an intensive five minutes of internetting, here's what I managed to come up with.

But it's still not enough, so here's some of that tedious hyperlinked text that I mentioned. It will take you to more Beta Band! This is a good thing.

Dry The Rain

Out -Side

Quiet

Assessment

I suppose I should say something about them, too. The Beta Band are/were from Scotland, and made amazing music together up until 2004 when they broke up. I got into them a bit after that, and subsequently know very little about them. Click below for the truth according to Wiki/Myspace/The Beta Band.

Website: http://www.betaband.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thebetaband

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beta_Band

Deftones

These guys took off at around the same time as the emergence and rise of nu-metal, and were often mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Korn and Limp Bizkit. So you understand why I was initially quite dismissive, right?

But my ears pricked up a bit when third album White Pony was released. Die-hard fans didn't seem too enamoured by it, bemoaning the fact that not every song sounded like 7 Words or My Own Summer. And lead single Change (In The House Of Flies) was... well, brilliant. Dark, sinister, and heavy without being thuggish or mindless. Maybe there was more to these guys than drop-C tuning and waistbands around their balls...

Their sound has continued to evolve with each record, and yet is still unquestionably their own. I've come to the conclusion that Deftones really want to be a shoegaze/space rock kind of a band... but they're just too damn angry.

Head over to their myspace, and you can download new song Rocket Skates for free...

Website: http://www.deftones.com/home/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/deftones

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deftones