Will Haven! Now there's an under-rated band if ever I heard one.

I was about the perfect age for nu-metal (I'm 28), but I didn't really like it at the time. I wouldn't say I liked it now, but as pop-metal, there's the odd brilliant tune. Not sure that's nostalgia on my part. Now, me listening to Sleeper a lot lately, that's a lot more like nostalgia, but I'd like to pretend it's a quality that's missing from a lot of poppy 'alternative' stuff. Ultimately, I don't really care. Hand me my Volvo, Dido CDs and yearning for golf, for I am nudging 30.

Speaking of Will Haven, anyone remember Strife? I have a Strife shirt that I found at a fair for $1 once!

Strife t-shirts are a sure-fire way of making friends around here. Them and Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

That's so fucking weird, we were talking about Agoraphobic Nosebleed having a release on Crucial Blast yesterday and we couldn't remember which album..

I was talking about AN last night. I said, "They're probably the best band of their sort, apart from possibly Pig Destroyer". It's a fair measure of how much attention I pay that I didn't realise they were one member short of being the same band.

Also, is it just me, or does the shouty vocalist in Kittie sound just like the singer from Raised Fist?

Will Haven are very good, and certainly not nu-metal

No one remembers Adema ? Their s/t was one of my favorite albums

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIntU98s0pU

Yeah, I do! Isn't the singer Jon Davis's half-brother or something? haha.

Yeah, indeed. I've read that a long time ago. He does sound like Jonathan Davis !

yeah I posted a link to them in my first post.

Ah, I couldn't see most of the videos in your first post 'cause they say the content isn't available in my country :(

Fred Durst came along told them he'd make them rich if they'd tone it down a bit, and then Aaron Lewis found some peace in his life.

My band has a little bit of nu metal in our sound, but I wouldn't say we're trying to revive the style (it hasn't really gone away all that much). Some aspects of nu metal are pretty cool, but on the whole I don't feel the vibe. I like a guitar solo now and then, and anger is a pretty shallow emotion to base your whole sound on.

But to dismiss the whole thing is just fucking ignorant and snobbish.

true. but thats not system of a down, at least the s/t album. It has several solos and lead riffs all along the album, it is nothing like nu-metal sound, it does not have anything remotely hip hop to it. you're missing the key element to the formula, hip hop drum beats, which is what brings deftones towards nu-metal.

Just having a fierce edge does not make you nu-metal, you have to be the evolution of mid-90s rap-rock. generally, I think of nu-metal as an imitation of good mid-90s rap rock which RATM and deftones most definitely fall into, they being bands from that specific era. Rap rock is metal guitar with hip hop drum and bass, and even some rapping over screaming chorus vocals, and that is most definitely not nu-metal, and neither is that System of a Down, i'm telling you, they are classic metal/hardcore sound..

I always based nu-metal around simple drop D riffs with a strong overdrive and System of a Down has that in spades. I'd personally say they are nu-metal but they were just a tad weirder than their contemporaries.

Actually, Derek, I'm pretty sure every riff on s/t is in drop-c, but still... there ARE a few weird guitar riffs (which KoRn has way more of, and they're still considered nu metal) and one solo ("Soil)". I've listened to the album 2085029850285 times. I'd still call it nu-metal.. I think most people would. It may be a LITTLE bit stranger, but they're still a nu-metal band. And nu-metal isn't just rap-rock evolved, look at Deadlights, Kittie, Static-X, Amen, etc. That description doesn't apply to any of them and they're all definitely nu-metal.

Oh right, well they are still chunky simple drop tuned riffs ya dig haha.
But yeah, I think they are definitely nu-metal. What else could they be? They are too heavy for 'rock' and not heavy enough for 'metal'!

Yeah, it's still one finger riffs.

And they are nu-metal, everyone in the world calls them nu metal except SuchFriends, because he considers nu metal an insult and is ashamed to like a nu metal band? ;)

not at all, it just much like 'grunge' or 'punk' everybody today seems to forget what really was considered the sound during its era. I was THERE in the nu-metal era, I remember EXACTLY what it was, and it entails as you have all described, chunky open chord riffs, no guitar solos, crust like screaming chorus, but MOST DEFINITELY needs HIP HOP drum beats.

You guys must make a distinction between nu-metal and rap-rock, they are not the same. If some of y'all are too young to have been there, fine, but I'm sure you were there atsonicpark, you should know better ;)

Both me and atsonicpark were there for it. Granted, I was a lot younger than both of you but I listened to a lot of that stuff! And what about the bands Adam named, "Deadlights, Kittie, Static-X, Amen, etc."? How are they not nu-metal?