https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG-RNq7oRUM
I had a whole stream of bile directed towards everyone’s favorite load of pre-teen pandering, Attack Attack!, when I realized their latest record actually came out like six months ago. I assumed an album was on the horizon and I typed out all these dire predictions about its quality. And a quick Googling showed that my forecast wasn’t far off. Their self-titled sophomore effort is, in fact, awful, even worse than the first record and belittling to fans of almost any genre of music. But let’s focus our sights on new single “Smokahontas.”
First off, you’ll be happy to know that while running in place didn’t make the cut for this clip, there are some very crab-like movements. The band truly has no problem owning the meme, and have yet to grasp that aside from literally playing while astride potty-training toilets, there is nothing that looks more humiliating.
The video itself is pretty harmless. The storyline is mostly jumbled shots of the band dressed like Mafioso as they kill people, smoke cigarettes and play in front of a burning car while the babyfattish singer leans on a gas can for no reason. If it wasn’t for the music and brief glances of arthropodic dancing, this video would pass by unnoticed. But luckily there is still that music to deal with.
You get thirty seconds of random chugs from a Meshuggah warm-up, twenty seconds of something from an episode of Jem, another round of both and by this point you’re just salivating to hear what’s next. Because remember, even though bands like this love to wear fucking Gorguts shirts or whatever, these songs are crushingly predictable and they will almost always follow their verse chorus verse with something incredibly precious. And, well, I just heard this term today- Trancecore. That is what music has come to. While Rapcore was an unquestionable blight, at least there’s a discernible canon of hip-hop. But whatever you do, for the love of God, couldn’t you have had the decency to keep fucking Paul Oakenfold out of metal?
Little is more offensive than when a band is shown “playing” a part that is obviously all electronics. And now that the keyboardist has decided that scrambling around his synth units wasn’t tough enough, there is a scene where out of five dudes, four of them don’t do anything for an entire section of the song, while three mime playing instruments. I mean, you can argue the merits of many aspects of this music, but when 60% of your band are the literal definition of poseur, it’s hard for me to envision a counterpoint.
And if we assume that most of their new record is like this (and I’ve now read that it’s quite keyboard heavy), then when you see these songs live, a majority of the music is coming from offstage, probably triggered by the drummer’s dad or their overworked sound guy (likely the same person).
While I was late to the party on the new Attack Attack!, I’m closer when it comes to discussing a band that really embodies Trancecore in all its tired, worthless, opportunistic ignorance. Not only are Toronto’s Abandon All Ships recklessly trying to co-opt both the Christian demographic while also promoting profanity, partying, violence and objectification of women, but their music is a much more seamless blend of fey autotune and dopey, metal thug posturing. They could very well be the true future of this music. All they need is some dumb fucking dance move.
