Attack Attack!: Today's Most Influential Band :(

   Since they broke through in 2009 with the infamous music video "Stick Stickly," Attack Attack! have been the purveyors of all that is face-palm worthy about modern music combining weak screamo with even weaker electronic dance beats to create something so unlistenable that you can't even call it the bastard offspring of screamo and techno, it's just more unholy than that. They are the auteurs of awful, the titans of terrible, and the pioneers of pain...inflicted upon your ears. And the thing is, they're easily one of the most influential bands to come out of the hardcore/metal genres in the last decade.

   When I think of more recent metal bands who I would describe as very influential, I think of Necrophagist and how they greatly popularized tech-death in 2003, and as a result, we have bands like Abysmal Dawn, Spawn of Possession, the Faceless, and the awesome Obscura along with many others populating the metal scene who make music in the same exact vein as Necro. Bands like Ghost and Holy Grail influenced the deluge of traditional metal (or "vest metal") that's becoming very popular again, and going back into the '90s, Neurosis has been the starting point for just about all underground sludge, post-metal, and post-hardcore that has come out since then. But what's the one band that I see more bands ripping off than any other band? Attack Attack!! (notice how I had to enter another exclamation point there)

   The amount of shit that's coming out today that rips off every aesthetic of Attack Attack! is overflowing hard-music's goblet of shit. For Example:

   

   And this shit has even spread to Africa (WARNING: CANNOT UNLISTEN)

   And those are just some of the bands in this style. For more, look up bands on Rise records and Victory. So what do we have here? Combover haircuts, matching v-necks, running in place, crab crouching, auto-tuned clean vocals, electronic wankery, breakdowns, breakdowns, and more breakdowns, and a lot of "verb-the-noun" band names as well. Do you know what this reminds me of? The late '80s hair metal movement where you had bands copying bands copying bands copying the originators. Who is the originator here? Attack Attack!. (notice the period. working around that exclamation point is getting irritating.) The influences of the 17-22 year old kids making this music only goes back as far as Attack Attack!, or maybe as far back as the old school stuff like Bullet For My Valentine, yeah, SO old school. I wrote this article today because I thought it would be fun to write about, but it really just goes over what we already know: this stuff should be ignored and it's tiring to go over this banal topic. If you want good music in your life, here's what I've been rocking lately. I hope you enjoy it...