Five metal bands that were gone too soon
These five bands made some seriously amazing music, but expired too soon, or had unbecoming comebacks.
Every now and then, I encounter a band that offers a fixed-in-time appreciation experience. they produce a finite selection of material, which in some cases, you experience retroactively, as you discover them long after they have disbanded.
This is contrasted to a band like In Flames (competing with only Pantera for the top spot on my favourite ever bands), who had a distinct stylistic change, but continue to produce new music today. With In Flames, there is always the hope of seeing glimpses of the magic that made them so incredible in the early years. And for the most part, they remain pretty epic, even with the stylistic change. The same goes for Architects.
This post is dedicated to bands, that disappeared completely, and either made a fairly trivial comeback some years later, or disbanded altogether.
#5 Sybreed
I discovered Sybreed very recently, I think around 2019 or 2020. Since I discovered their album God is an Automaton, I have spent a lot of time revisiting their prior albums and just basking in the precision and groove of this industrial metal act.
Sybreed produce a very satisfying music experience. Groove + Melody. It is very unapologetic. The double kick pedal is relentless, and the synchronicity between the guitar and kick drum against the backdrop of vocal and synth melodies, just hits the spot for me, every time.
Sybreed disbanded in 2013, having released 4 albums. Luckily, they left us with quite a catalogue to contemplate, and all is not lost. It is sad however since the God is an Automaton album really feels like the pinnacle of their sound, but I sincerely wish I had the opportunity to get to know them around the Slave Design era because that album is quite brutal.
Learning that they disbanded, left me feeling very deprived, and had me searching for surrogate bands and sounds to fill the gap that they left.
#4 Circle of Contempt
I discovered Circle of Contempt in 2018 when I living in Amsterdam. It was a recommendation made by my business partner, Marko. I think it may be one of the very few bands he introduced me to, that really stuck!
I listened to their entire catalogue, for months on end. I am not sure how to categorise their style of music. Their Wikipedia page seems to suggest that they are a metalcore band, and perhaps, in some broad sense, it fits well enough, although there is a strong mathcore feel to it, blended with the melodic elements from the metalcore spectrum.
Their last album Structures for Creation was released in 2016, and although there appears to be no official record of them disbanding, there hasn’t been anything new in the last 6 years, which feels like it signals a decline in intensity.
I am not as familiar with the prior album and EP, as I am with Structures for Creation.
It feels like they lost their momentum just when they found the sound that made them unique, and I so wish that they did a follow-up within the three-year window.
I addition, it is one of those bands that I only discovered some time after the release of their most recent album. Makes me feel like I really missed out.
They have an amazing catalogue of songs.
Circle of Contempt songs you must hear!
#3 Adept
Adept, is one of those bands that also landed on my radar, only after their last album was released.
I got into their latest release, Sleepless, heavily, in 2017. It was a very intense time of my life, and this album spent many many hours on repeat. It holds a very special place in my recollections of that time in my life.
The opening track off of the Sleepless album, Black Veins, remains one of my favourite tracks. Everything from the guitar tone, to the vocal delivery, is pure perfection.
I have one opportunity to see them perform live, in 2018 I think, when they were billed to perform at a hardcore-themed festival in the south of the Netherlands. I had everything lined up to try to get there, but in the end, I could not make it work.
I still regret not making the effort to see them live.
Again, their Wiki page still appears to suggest they are active as a band, however, we have yet to see any movement from them over the last 6 years, which leads me to believe that perhaps their bill-paying professional lives have taken priority.
It is a pity, because it feels like really hit the spot the Sleepless, and then dissolved into oblivion, placing them at risk of being one of those bands who end up doing a subpar comeback album that simply does not capture the magic they once wielded.
I dearly hope that I am wrong on the latter prediction, but I do not have the highest of hopes.
That said, Sleepless is a spectacular album, and I think probably my most-played album in 2017, along with Wage War’s first two albums.
Adept songs you must hear!
#2 Dry Kill Logic
Dry Kill Logic was a big feature during my first year at university. Back in those days, we would still lend and borrow original CDs with one another to share new music.
Dry Kill Logic’s debut album, The Darker Side of Nonsense (2001) was lent to me by a mate’s older brother. The song Rot, blew my head off. The brutality, the urgency, the intensity… The guitars, the drums, the vocals!!!
Even now, listening to that section at 01:16, when everything drops away and the guitars come in, gives me goosebumps. It also disturbs the safe slumber of a savage philistine that I safely retired in my late twenties.
Their follow up album in 2004, The Dead And Dreaming was phenomenal. The track, Paper Tiger has some of the best vocals of the nu-metal era. The harsh vocals are seriously immense, and the contrast with the melody of the clean vocals is still something that I find hard to top.
And then, they topped both the previous albums with the follow-up album in 2006, called Of Vengeance and Violence. Listening to it now, I think this was more of a metalcore album that the previous two, judging by the drums and the riffing. Of Vengeance and Violence, is spectacular.
And then, gone. Perhaps their disappearance is poetic, in that they left us with only magic.
We saw two singles from them, one in 2019, and one in 2020, but I haven’t heard anything since.
Look, comeback albums, in my experience, have mostly disappointed, but I still have very sincere hopes that they would be the exception to the rule, were they ever to release a full-length album again. If you listen to the riff in Vices (2019), you can almost taste the Dry Kill Logic we have long craved.
Dry Kill Logic tracks you must hear!
#1 Flaw
Flaw exploded onto the Nu-Metal scene in 2002, bolstered largely by their appearance in the Vin Diesel, painful-to-watch-as-an-adult, Hollywood action film, xXx. This is the same film that saw Rammstein performing Fauer Frei on screen. They also had a track called Only the Strong, on the Scorpion King Soundtrack, where they shared airtime with Godsmack, with their Single, I Stand Alone.
In short, they shared platforms with some big names very soon after their first major label release.Flaw released Through the Eyes in 2001 and it was a spectacular album. Flaw had the quintessential nu-metal signatures. Low-tuned 7-string guitars, the hip-hop style bass no doubt inspired, or at least influenced, by Fieldy from Korn, single kick pedal, almost understated drums, and of course, the massive vocal talent that was Chris Voltz.
When their second album (Endangered Species) was released in 2004, I pre-ordered the album and had it shipped to South Africa on the day of its release. This was a perfect follow-up to the first album. In a recent Tweet by Revolver Magazine, They asked “What is the best Nu-Metal Second Album?
My response was, Slipknot, Iowa, which I think is fair. I think that album basically cancelled nu-metal. No one was ever going to top that.
However, the albums I considered of the top of my head, for the acclaim of the best second nu-metal album, other than Iowa, were the following:
Godsmack — Awake
Limp Bizkit — Significant Other
Dry Kill Logic — The Dead And Dreaming
Deftones — Around the Fur
Flaw — Endangered Species
Linkin Park — Meteora
System of a Down — Toxicity
Endangered Species simply had everything. It was heavy, it was melodic, and it was unique. I listened that album to death, and I forced it down the throats of all my siblings, all my friends, and all their girlfriends, relentlessly. I spent a lot of time with that album. It was, and remains, a great collection of songs.
Endangered Species was the mark of a great collection of musicians, a great vocalist, converting their individual pain and band inner tension into exceptional art.
And then, they broke up…
Chris Voltz went on to do Five Bolt Main, and some solo stuff, which (with the exception of Five Bolt Main — Pathetic), never really blew my hair back.
They also did a comeback album, with the original Flaw lineup in 2016 for an album called Divided we Fall. I was so excited, I pre-ordered the album on iTunes, and on the day of its release, really sunk my teeth into it, only to swallow the most unfortunate anti-climax.
I count Flaw as my number-one metal band, that was gone too soon.
