Weekly Update #34 – December 15, 2024

FEATURED ALBUM
As I Lay Dying // Through Storms Ahead
Released: November 15, 2024

…And it was over before it even began. Tim Lambesis just cannot keep it together, and it’s such a shame because this is my favorite As I Lay Dying album since ‘An Ocean Between Us’ from 2007.

I’m going to skip over explaining that Lambesis tried to hire a hitman to kill his ex-wife in 2013. It’s old news at this point. I’ll just briefly mention that after spending a few years in prison, he got out, did an apology tour, and got the band back together. As I Lay Dying started off as a Christian band so the idea of “second chances” seemed fitting.

The problem was that the other members couldn’t seem to get past it. Nick Hipa, the band’s guitarist since 2003, was the first to exit in 2021. Then, founding member Jordan Mancino (the drummer since 2000) and Josh Gilbert (the bassist since 2006) both quit a few months apart in 2022. The only remaining longtime member other than Tim Lambesis was Phil Sgrosso, who joined the band as a guitarist in 2003.

The vague statements surrounding the departures didn’t reveal much, and As I Lay Dying began filling the positions. First, they pulled Ryan Neff from Miss May I to sing and play bass. Afterwards, guitarist Ken Susi was recruited from Unearth, and Unearth’s former drummer, Nick Pierce, was also selected.

The injection of new personnel gave As I Lay Dying a much needed shot in the arm. Unearth is a highly respected metalcore band that plays straight up, classic metalcore, and its members elevated AILD’s music. Even Ryan Neff, who I don’t typically think is a strong part of Miss May I, has some real highlights on this album. The choruses are solid, and a few moments remind me of the style of singing from ‘An Ocean Between Us’ that I have missed for a long time. 

Most importantly, it feels like ‘Through Storms Ahead’ has some real teeth. Tim Lambesis unleashed some of his inner darkness, and when combined with the proactive instrumentals, it results in a more substantive sound than ‘Shaped By Fire’ gave us in 2019.

Despite the appearance of success, fans praising the singles, and a lot of hype for the album, Ryan Neff, Ken Susi, Nick Pierce, and Phil Sgrosso quit the band over the span of two weeks in October 2024. Even the band’s touring manager quit. Tim Lambesis was left as the only remaining member. And then the album was released 16 days later.

Shortly after that, videos of Tim Lambesis acting like a psycho towards his wife were leaked.  Which, I didn’t realize that he’s had two different wives since being released from prison. Dude must have a way with words to convince two different women to marry him after trying to have his first wife killed. So with the videos of him being crazy and aggressive with wife number three, everyone assumed that the members of the band left because they knew what was happening behind the scenes. In a crazy turn of events, Lambesis said the videos were leaked in retaliation to make him look bad because HE filed for divorce, initiated a domestic violence investigation against his wife, and filed for a restraining order against her after enduring years of being verbally and mentally abused by her.

I mean, what can I even say about that. I guess it’s possible – the wife was obviously crazy enough to marry him in the first place. She either has a penchant for trying to rehabilitate felons or has a screw loose herself (or maybe that’s the same thing).

Obviously, we’ve strayed quite a ways from talking about the actual music. Look, I love AILD and Tim is a great musician. Probably not a good person, but if he can stay out of jail and find some talented musicians to tolerate his antics, he might be able to keep this AILD thing going. It’s a shame that things turned out the way they did – I was genuinely excited about this iteration of the band. No doubt we are going to continue getting lyrics about overcoming adversity, taking on the world, and conquering the past. It’s a terrible situation, but I wish Tim the best. He’s definitely got some storms ahead (been waiting to make that pun for this whole review).

Playlist of New Songs

Quick playlist highlights:

– Livealie is getting ready to release their new album on December 27. This single has more singing than the others, but it’s actually one of my favorites so far. Excellent job keeping things interesting and avoiding the common pitfall of a bland softer song.

– I’m not sure about this direction from Silent Planet. I like the heaviness of the vocals, but I don’t love the focus on the industrial synths. It’s just kind of basic. They started doing it on their last album, and I thought that was fine because it was a fresh sound from the band, but the instrumentals of their early work were much more interesting. I don’t think I have a word for this yet. It’s not octanecore, but it’s such a simplification of their sound that it’s…elementary.

– The Royal are back with another single. I’ve always liked their screaming style and hope they get some more attention.

– I’m not sure how Axty showed up on my radar, but they’re a dynamic metalcore band that includes some surprisingly heavy deathcore vocals.

– Abbie Falls teamed up with Breakdown of Sanity to create a solid jam. I’m surprised they haven’t released an album yet. If they do it right, they’ll definitely find success.

– Haste The Day remixed and remastered ‘Coward’ for its 10-year anniversary. Honestly, it feels kind of unnecessary. The mix wasn’t great back then, but I don’t think people care about this album in the first place. I’m just not sure what the demand signal was. I’m way more interested in hearing them make new music after the single they put out in October.

– Windwaker‘s new single is a fun reminder that they released an absolute banger of an album this year as people start putting their end of year lists together.

– Dehumanizing Itatrain Worship describes themselves best: Slamming brutal death metal band inspired by kawaii-anime culture.

– Bermuda seems to be trying to rise from the ashes. They had a single last year, but their most recent album was seven years ago. Their initial releases built them a solid name, but they never quite made it. Maybe this is their time.

– I just found Body Prison this week and listened to their 2023 album. Hard hitting deathcore that isn’t overly worried about being ridiculously heavy while still having some brutal moments.

VOTE ON YOUR FAVORITE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

Have you ever wanted to vote on your favorite albums at the end of the year? Well now you can!

I created the Google form below to get your input. I’ll still have my official list, but I’m also going to create a second list that compiles your rankings. All you have to do is respond to the first question and put 10 (or more) albums in order from your favorite to least favorite.

The form has a list of about 75 bands that released music this year in case you need a helpful reminder. You can also add other bands to your list – the 75 I provided are just meant to be a helpful reference. I put the bands in alphabetical order to make sure I didn’t reveal my own ranking.

There isn’t a maximum, but I ask that you at least provide your top 10. As an example, your list could look like this:
1. Like Moths To Flames
2. Alpha Wolf
3. In Hearts Wake
4. Erra
…all the way to 10 (or more)

Don’t forget to submit it when you’re done!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1JyISFC231gbsA98As3pgxW-r8kabki75gFc5D0y_BLM/edit

DRAMA – Finn McKenty (The Punk Rock MBA) Quits YouTube

Finn McKenty, better known as The Punk Rock MBA, has apparently quit YouTube. His channel has 611,000 subscribers, but his last video was uploaded three months ago.

Recently, he appeared in an interview (linked below) and said, “I don’t have any plans to do anything on YouTube” and “I don’t really have any interest in music, I was just doing it for the money, and I hit my financial goals.”

I want to say a couple things about this. First, I don’t particularly like Finn or his opinions, but I know that he has helped people get into heavy music and I’ll always support that. So although I’ve hardly watched any of his videos, it’s pretty clear that they’ve been going downhill for a long time. At least in 2018-2019 his videos were informative, had some personality, and helped shine a light on upcoming bands. More recently, his content has turned into clickbait nonsense for the masses.

Unfortunately, he acknowledged this himself in a video from seven months ago titled, “An Honest Channel Update…” where he talked about his content changing because of the stress/pressure to grow the channel and make money to support his family. So that makes sense – he needed clickbait that would appeal to the lowest common denominator so he could maximize views and ad revenue. He also said that the stress of making money through his YouTube channel was so great that it started to impact his ability to sleep, sometimes causing him to wake up in the middle of the night having a panic attack.

What doesn’t make sense is that seven months later, he appears in this interview and says that he’s hit his financial goals. How did he go from having panic attacks over ad revenue to hitting his financial goals in such a significant way that he doesn’t need to make a YouTube video ever again?

The other part that bothers me about that interview is that he claims he doesn’t have any interest in music. That is obviously a lie. Back before he even started making YouTube videos, he wrote articles on MetalSucks under the name Sergeant D. Although his recent videos basically consist of summarizing Wikipedia articles, I think he was pretty involved in the 90’s punk and death metal scenes based on the background knowledge he shared in his early videos. Some of that stuff is so obscure, you would only know about it if you were there/invested in learning about it.

Aside from that, part of the dilemma he talks about in the “An Honest Channel Update…” video is that he has been discouraged by viewers’ reactions to videos that he actually does care about. For instance, he mentioned making a video about how k-pop is the new emo because he was interested in exploring that, but it was his worst performing video in years. And I think that is the actual answer to him stepping away from content creation – he’s jaded. People don’t enjoy the content he wants to create, and he’s tired of making content about things that he doesn’t like.

But still, I don’t understand how choosing to stop making content (and earning no money) is better than making content he enjoys (and earning slightly less money). Perhaps the reward isn’t worth the work, or maybe he’s just over it and would rather the whole thing be over than to choose a course of action that he knows is going to result in a decline in his viewership/reputation/whatever.

Honestly, I don’t even believe him. I think he’ll be back. I probably fell into his trap and am helping him get more attention. Damn you Finn McKenty, you force me to learn about your life so I can write an informative article and you stab me in the back like this? I give it six more months – there’s no way he’s just going to disappear. But if he does, how much do you think it would cost to buy his YouTube channel…