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Thrashing to Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” in a flannel and high-tops with un-kept long hair was associated with the late 80’s and early 90’s. With bands like Bullet for My Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold, the metal tribute from the best era is making a full punch-to-the-throat comeback form. And I for one welcome our new metal resurgence overlords.

Some people would disagree with me, but taking inspiration from previous decades and putting a modern spin to it, is something in music I welcome. It serves as a way to pay tribute to the previous decades, and allows more of the music that you once loved to come back in new iterations.

Here is a small list compiled to get you right back to the glory days and bring back the best sub-genre to come from rock in all of time (Opinion? I think not!). Think of this list as a guideline to living and breathing metal in your everyday life. So put your metal horns high, thrash that bobbling head of yours and check out 2008’s version of the golden metal days!

The Albums
Metallica - “Death Magnetic” is the final nail in the coffin to the metal bashers who deny such a revolution. For everyone who recently thought Metallica was going the downward spiral with “St. Anger” and all the Napster battles and band troubles, Metallica delivered a one-two punch to nay-sayers in the form of their “Some Kind of Monster” documentary and their critically and fan acclaimed CD, “Death Magnetic”.

Like I said, everything they did wrong with their last CD, “St. Anger” came back hitting hard on “Death Magnetic”. Kurt’s solos are back and better then ever. Rick Rubin definitely did good with allowing the now mellow Kurt to channel his on-the-spot solos and letting them through to the CD. Their structure and hunger seems to be back while they seem to cover their whole range of albums from “Master of Puppets” to “The Black Album” and the parts that actually did work from “Load” and “Reload”.

I was sadly with the crowd that thought the old Metallica pre-”Load” was dunzo. However, when “Death Magnetic” was released, I saw myself go from almost forgetting the band to rightfully placing them back on the top of the Metal alter, once was, once again. They are one of the few remaining Metal bands that hold weight in present day, and they truly are icons to have made it through all the rock transitions to get back to the golden age.

Bullet for My Valentine - Spearheading the “Metal is Back” modern bands is a group out of Wales with so much talent and love for the metal scene, they can single-handedly bring metal back into the mainstream on their own. Don’t believe me? Featured on Revolver Magazines front cover on an older issue, they claimed exactly this. You can check out the interview here.

Arguably, Bullet for My Valentine has the best hooks and easy-to-swallow metal riffs of all modern age bands. Their solos and song structures are pure ear candy. They have opened for Metallica, Iron Maiden, Guns n’ Roses in the past. They look to Metallica as one of their main sources for inspiration, and covered quite a few of their original tracks with much success (Check out their cover of Creeping Death). Matt Tuck = Welsh version of early 90’s James Hettfield. There are times when you hear a Bullet for My Valentine song, Matt Tuck sounds like a 2008 version of the younger edition of James Hetfield. Just try and argue this. Of course they are a bit more radio-friendly but whoever said this is a bad thing? To me, that says, they are just that talented as musicians. Their future-comings will definitely be exciting to look forward to.

Dragonforce - Gaining mainstream attention to their “boss level” status on Guitar Hero, Dragonforce is a band that doesn’t take themselves as seriously as people may think. They are more concerned with extremely insane metal riffs and paying homage to the bands that started it all. Even though their “speed metal” has come into question with a clever nickname negatively given as a result (Studioforce blahahaha!!), their most recent CD “Ultra Beatdown” is a great CD to put you back into the metal mood.

Other bands worth noting: As I Lay Dying, Avenged Sevenfold
Classics: Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Megadeth

Notable Mentions
Guitar Hero/Rockband Craze - It wouldn’t be right to discuss the awesomeness of metal and everything attributing to it without Guitar Hero and Rockband. One of the biggest forms of entertainment to help spark a new metal revolution. The idea is taken from the need of rock fans everywhere to air guitar to their favorite songs. Just when everyone was claiming “rock is dead” and radio airplay seemed to be nothing but hip hop and pop music, this game got everyone excited about the band element and how awesome it was to have guitar and rock heroes. With a HUGE assortment of all different rock music, the later levels are gold mine for metal music since they have the hardest guitar structures and techniques in the genre.

The latest Guitar Hero game: “Guitar Hero - World Tour” will feature the entire Death Magnetic album for download, and in higher quality then the CD release, which caused fans of. There is even discussion to make an entirely separate title which would be “Guitar Hero: Metallica” which features “Ride the Lightning” font for its cover.

VH1 Classics - with shows like “Metal Mania” this is the channel to go to, to relive the glory days of Metal.

The Look
Metal has a distinct look and feel, not just a distinct sound. To go along with your new/old music and your plastic guitar, you going to need the proper threads to seal the deal. Early metal had a dirty “I don’t care” attitude while the most pop versions saw the glam style seeping through, which had a lot of current Metal fans cringing to forget (See: Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Kiss, Poison). Then there was the goth scene (’nuff said). The new style is a mixture of all the different times, with an emphasis on the classic grunge-metal look inspired from the early 90’s.

Current trends include: Skinny Dirty/Ripped Jeans, Flannel Shirts, High-Tops, Black Everything, Dirty Long Hair, Boots. See urbanoutfitters.com / hottopic.com / zumiez.com and even diesel.com for ideas.