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Love that hate
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The metal-core crossover genre has always been tricky. Ever since heavy metal and hardcore punk first merged in the mid-’80s, metal bands have had a hard time adopting the angst and anger of hardcore (see Megadeth) and vice versa, and hardcore bands have only stumbled when it came to grasping metal’s complexity (see D.R.I.). With the current crop of self-professed metal-core bands with angular haircuts diluting the music, the term has only been further equated with tepid riffs married to lyrical anger that comes across as mild and manufactured. Poughkeepsie, New York’s Shai Hulud, though, have managed to walk the wire, delivering seething, white-hot anger while proving more than able to tackle the more technical side of metal. “I think, if you really break it down, we would be the essence of metal-core,” says guitarist Matt Fox. “That term has always been really funny to us, though. I think that metal-core has turned into this thing now that is about fashion and a fake metal sound. We have never really been too concerned about applying eyeliner so I would hope that we would not be the best example of modern metal-core.” Shai Hulud are indeed hardly another mall metal band decked out in Hot Topic duds. They take direct influence from the old school crossover sound of Earth Crisis, Dead Guy and Cro Mags. Having got their start 11 years ago, they’ve endured their share of hardships, going through 16 ex-members before finally settling on their current line-up. “I’ve actually lost count of how many people have been in this band. We actually changed our name because it was a pretty scary and uncertain time, and we were wondering if anybody would really even care, but when friends of ours heard the demos for this new record, they insisted we had to call it Shai Hulud because otherwise it would just seem like we were ripping ourselves off. I still don’t know if we made the right decision, but there’s no looking back now.” Shai Hulud’s new record, Misanthropy Pure, hits on all marks with a new sense of purpose, and as the title indicates, explodes with seething hatred. If the lyrics just seem like poetic bellyaching, Fox insists there is a positive outcome to most of his griping. “I just find the lyrics really cathartic for me and think most of the songs still have a sense of hope. I don’t really consider myself a hateful person but I do hate ignorance, homophobia, sexism, objectification of women and other typical things that most forward-thinking people would probably also hate. “Actually, I also really hate the idea of honey mustard. It’s like some guy couldn’t handle the idea of mustard and had to add a bunch of honey to it. That really pisses me off.” WITH COMEBACK KID, MISERY |
