When and When Not To Go ‘Old School’

For many people in regards to most musicians, the first music that you hear from a particular band sets a precedent in your head of what their body of work will sound like. Ideally, you would catch a band early in their career, have their first CD, and that is your basis of what they should continue to sound like going forward. Some will stay that style and sound throughout their career, or maybe they will just break up and pursue another avenue or work. Some bands will change their style as they go along. This inevitably will cause listeners from the early days to say something to the effect of “I really wish they would go back to how they used to sound”. Hence, a band may decide to go ‘old school’ with their music and songwriting.

This can be a very cool return for many hardcore fans. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve gotten very tired of reading interviews with bands saying they are putting out the heaviest album they’ve ever done and they are going back to their roots, then getting the album to find out they did nothing even near that.

I checked out the new video for the band Bury Your Dead today. For those unaware, they’ve gone through some line-up changes over the years in regards to their lead singer. Mat Bruno was on the first few albums, then left the band. I have the early stuff and had the opportunity to see them live, and it was good but nothing great. After Mat leaves, in comes new singer Myke Terry, and all of a sudden Bury Your Dead takes new form. The songwriting gets much better, the real musicianship comes out, and it’s not all hardcore vocals but some actual singing mixed in as well. I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the band. Two albums later, Myke Terry is out and now Mat Bruno is back once again. Supposedly the songwriting for the new album was to write heavy songs for a live show, but the end result sounds like a degradation of musical talent. The direction they had been moving was scraped, and back was the same band I saw a few years back that really wasn’t very inspiring.

Real musicians are going to develop and evolve throughout their careers. It shouldn’t necessarily continue to sound the same if you are interested in bettering yourself as a musician. Maybe that’s why I find it so disheartening to hear a band sound so mediocre when I know they have more talent.