Scream 2

Metal's heavy-hitters return

by Chris Kanaracus

Has there ever been a heavier period in pop music? Ever? The evidence alone is overwhelming. Sevendust on WHJY. Reveille on WBRU. Korn on 'BCN. All of the above, over and over again, on WAAF. Sure, Shania, Backstreet, and Busta are there too, albeit drowned out by all that rage.

The music press is thinking heavy too. Beyond the usual industry culprits (Metal Maniacs, Metal Hammer, Hit Parader) the mainstream is constantly sporting some group of dissolute, piercing-parlor regulars as cover boys.

On MTV? Shocking developments have occurred there. Take the fact that you can see the latest clip from tattooed LA thrashers P.O.D. at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, right after the latest wiggle from Christina Aguilera. In a forgiving view, this phenomenon is a testament to the channel's commitment to diverse programming. In the more likely case, MTV, as usual, is taking the safe road: that which sells.

Metal, always the musical language of the rejected and of the abused, is in a peculiar, unfamiliar spot these days: it's the voice of rock radio. It's today's hip.

Not that it hasn't poked its greasy head above the muck before. Metallica, above all, already proved in the '80s that the hardest, heaviest material could achieve astounding success with little to no mainstream presence.

And whining too is a hallowed pop tradition. The once-celebrated, now-scorned Seattle sound had its share of stürm and dräng, as did early-'80s Euro-poppers like New Order and Bauhaus. Heck, Robert Johnson was strummin' and moanin' away his pain as far back as the '20s. Then there are groups who don't realize they're making you angry and depressed, like Hootie and Hanson.

But none of those acts was as ugly, vicious, or as scary as that which passes for top 40 these days. And this weekend, Worcester is the best place in the world to see and to hear what today's ruckus is about. Fifty-plus bands, from emo, grind, death, rap to old-school, will appear at the second annual New England Metal and Hardcore Festival over the course of two days.

That's one day down from last year's show, which, according to promoter John Peters, drew about 5200 fans for the three-day fest. Fear not, though: it's not as if Peters took a bath last time, and is now circling the wagons. "Three days, it was just too much for us [concert staff]. . . . We tightened things up this year," he says. Still, the wealth of bands who petitioned him for a slot on the show were great enough in numbers to call for a third stage. If all goes well, it will be located in the former Commercial Street Cafe, which will soon reopen as the Alley (which, hopefully, will clear up its license problems by concert time), and will feature lesser-known national and local acts.

Headlining the Palladium event will be techno-influenced Machine Head, Harvard-based Reveille, aging-but-still-game punkers the Misfits, and the timeless, "controversial" Cannibal Corpse.

But many, even most of the festival's supporting acts, will remain in the underground scenes they come from. On one level, that's unfortunate, but it's also a bit inevitable. The tortured grind of Dying Fetus and Six Feet Under will never, ever, be anything but a dark, slightly-smelly stain on the underbelly of rock and roll.

Yet some groups have proven that the public can bear the punishment. Indeed, consider bands like Korn, who, while certainly benefiting from a sustained, major-label push, have moaned, groaned, and ground their way to the top. Though they remain somewhat repetitious, a tad clichéd, and, er, a bit ridiculous.

But they have some damn catchy tunes, at least as catchy as a sledgehammer to the eardrum can be. And the kids seem to love them, which should be indication enough. Critics, meanwhile, have been reluctant to put down their Beck and Beastie Boys records long enough to pay attention.

Those scattered voices of dissent, though, haven't slowed metal's runaway train; the 30,000 kids who snapped up tickets to two late-March Korn show at the Centrum Centre in less than three hours are ample evidence.

But that's not to say there aren't a couple of acts you can afford to miss at this weekend's festival.

Heading Friday's bill, unfortunately, is the seminal death-metal band Cannibal Corpse, who tasted wider fame in 1996, when they were Bob Dole's choice for his presidential campaign's "Example of Music that is Harming Our Children and Should be Banned." Naturally, any intended irony implied by churlish song titles like "Hammer Smashed Face" and "Tomb of the Mutilated" went right over Bob's gray, old head; but on a purely musical level, he hit the mark. Certainly, the combined governments of Korea, Australia, and New Zealand (where Cannibal Corpse are forever banned) can't be wrong.

Then there are the Dillinger Escape Plan. Some have championed their music as "wildly innovative" and "impossibly complex." But if these New Jersey preppie-boy/indie-label darlings were, say, one-toothed longhairs from the Kentucky hill country, those same observers, I suspect, would save the $5 adjectives for later and go with time-tested zingers like "crap" and "utter nonsense that gave me a painful headache."

But honestly, that's about it on this line-up as far as pure, worthless rot goes. Even conservatively, there are about 30 bands who are worth seeing, from the newest blood to the oldest school.

In the former category are Reveille who shamelessly plagiarize Rage Against the Machine, but do it well. And, perhaps more important, they're (almost) hometown boys who are starting to make it big on a national scale.

On the fringes of the Staind/Reveille/Godsmack camp are Springfield's Simple, who ply a similar trade to that of their brethren and who could be the next Massachusetts band to break. Nationally, the new-metal-machine's latest candidates are Primer 55, who not only have the sound down, but also are handled by the same folks as Korn and as the Deftones. Ka-ching!

In a metal/hardcore world where many acts are but competent updates of an existing style, the horn-and-jazz inflected, yet still woefully heavy Candiria (who appear on Saturday) are bringing color and originality to metal's often bleak frontier. New Hampshire-based Scissorfight's polished, lyrically droll riff-rock sound is as brawny, and almost as hard to ignore, as frontman Ironlung's 350-plus-pound frame. See the band Rob Zombie wishes he could sound like.

New York's Step Kings and Boston's Reach the Sky will represent the latest twists in the ever-evolving punk/hardcore schism; and Methuen's Cave-In will mix just about everything into their hellacious, occasionally visionary stew of icy metal riffs, standard tortured screams, and fluid, prog-influenced guitar interludes.

There will be many more, enough to ensure, at the very least, the necessity of both earplugs and a bottle of Advil.

Indeed, with all of its volume, fury, speed, precision, (or occasional lack thereof), metal isn't always the most pleasant of musical forms. But just as rarely is it safe; you'd be hard-pressed to find a style that constantly pushes at something, whether at the bounds of the idiom itself or at the nameless, godless villains its lyrics so often invoke.

Ihshan, frontman of the scathing Norwegian black-metal group Emperor, nailed the sentiment, when he told me last year that music such as his "isn't for the beach. It's about thinking. About trying to accomplish something."

It's a salient point. Metal often has a mission, even if it can sometimes sound like one endless, meaningless din. I'd dare say that at its base level, metal is the sine wave of revolution. At least until the Clash reform.

NEW ENGLAND METAL AND HARDCORE FESTIVAL FRIDAY (starting at 5:30 p.m.) At the Palladium: Machine Head, Six Feet Under, Reveille, Shadows Fall, Immolation, 7th Rail Crew, H8 Machine, Gangsta Bitch Barbie, Primer 55, Simple, Buried Alive, Rain Fell Within, 100 Demons, Unearth, Scrape, Sworn Enemy, Skinless, Burial, Internal Bleeding, Colepitz, Havoc At the Alley: Eastcide, Shed, R22, Nok, Hypnotic Kick, Dead Trees Swaying, God Forbid, Neck, Trustfall SATURDAY (starting at noon) At the Palladium: Misfits, Cannibal Corpse, Snapcase, Vision of Disorder, Candiria, Anal Cunt, Reach the Sky, Isis, Indecision, Dillinger Escape Plan, Dying Fetus, Turmoil, Pessimist, Diecast, Grade, Dissolve, All That Remains, Drowning Man, Step Kings, Gargantua Soul, Maudlin of the Well, Torn Assunder, Chimaira, Hope Conspiracy, Blood Has Been Shed, Diabolic, Himsa, Killswitch Engage, Suffer, Old Man Gloom, Cannae, Catheter, Drag Body, Hate Eternal, Disassociate, Long Winter Stare, God Dethroned At the Alley: Death Threat, Skarhead, Ground Zero, Recoil, Haste, Spite, Onslaught, Humans Being, Toxic Field Mice, Code 7, Crash Davis, In Pieces, Fragment, Deceased, Fallen, Excoriate