Be it the seemingly more prevalent specter of nü metal or the continued revival of early 2000s metalcore, there has certainly been thick traces of nostalgia present in much of the music from the the scene’s current up and comers. The Acacia Strain frontman Vincent Bennett weighed in on the trend during the latest episode of the ‘BREWtally Speaking Podcast‘.
Speaking on the early metalcore scene that The Acacia Strain came up in, he stated:
“Yeah it’s very odd to me, because I was there, and I saw the weird shit that happened and all the terrible bands.
I was talking to David from Sanction, like the first day of tour and he’s like ‘this bands sick, and that bands sick’ and I’m like no they’re not. Those bands are terrible, they didn’t even know how to play their instruments.
Kids are hanging onto something they think was cool, but in reality it was just kinda dumb.
I don’t even remember what bands he was talking about, but a lot of the bands he was mentioning I was like what?
Nobody liked that band when they were a band, there’s no way you like them now.
There’s so many kids trying to recreate what happened back then, which is cool, some of the bands do a very good job like Vatican and Chamber, bands like that are doing a great job recreating what happened back then. But then there’s some bands are just missing the boat, and some kids are holding onto the wrong things.
It’s really hard to explain, cause I was there and I understand why this kind of music went away. I don’t understand why people are trying to hold onto something they weren’t a part of… It’s called progress.”
The band’s guitarist Tom Smith also took part in the interview and weighed in as well:
“Nostalgia doesn’t necessarily mean good. I’m sorry, but the nü metal bands that a lot of kids are back into—not good. I’m not gonna say which ones, but as a whole, not really good.”
Bennett later added:
“Nostalgia only works once. People my age, they like the bands from their childhood or their teen years because it was their first time hearing anything like that, and they were young. So it was new and everything was great because you have all this energy and everything is brand new.
Fast forward 20 years and you’re still trying to hold onto that. It doesn’t really stand the test of time because you’re not young anymore. You can’t relive it for the first time again.
So, better make more memories and make new nostalgia by listening to newer bands and hearing that for the first time and being surprised and excited for the first time again.
People confuse the ‘Oh, music was better when I was a kid’, no it wasn’t, you were just a kid and you thought everything was new and everything was fun.
Music is better now, trust me.”
The Acacia Strain themselves have of course been celebrating the 10th anniversary of their album “Continent” in the past year and admitted in the chat that the touring behind it had a bit of a negative impact on their latest album, “Gravebloom“.
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