It shouldn't be this difficult to find good tunes

It's the 25th anniversary of Poison The Well's seminal album, The Opposite of December, and I’m full of feelings

Y’ever get an email that punches you in the feels so hard you go back in time about twenty years?

Poison The Well is touring for the 25th anniversary of an album that changed the trajectory of my entire relationship with music, and the news wrenched me back into my teenaged body: The slick saltiness of a too-hot venue smothered in Axe-scented body odor and someone’s fast-food leftovers tinged with a bit of blood. Returning to The Opposite of December, listening to well-loved tracks I’ve all but memorized over these last 25 years, was an experience I’ve been missing for about as long.

Recently, I was chatting with a mom friend who is also hard up for a new band, a new sound in which to wrap herself, lose herself in folds of melody and rhythm while drowning out household responsibilities for an hour or so. We’re also at that stage in our lives where the band needs to hit us, really smack us hard in the blood pumpers, make us feel something, invite us to stay for the long haul with a tune that fuckin‘ bops.

When my friend asked me for a band recommendation, I came up short, had nothing new to offer.

I didn’t even know where to start.

Good tunes just don’t fall from the clouds like they used to.

When I was a teenager, new tunes seemed to fall out of the sky and straight into my lap. Friends brought infinite musical flavors and styles in undulating waves, trips to FYE or another record store meant going home with fists full of stereo gold, and there seemed to be a basement show in a neighboring town’s church or community center every other Friday night. I’d have lived in a venue were such a thing possible. Between the critical ages of 13 and 18 lived the Dionysian consumption of art. And drunk on art I was—the books, the movies, the bands. In that pocket of adolescence between learning to drive and leaping headfirst into adult responsibilities, I found my tunes and, through them, myself, my people.

I was never what you’d call a “Scene Kid.” Didn’t wear the clothes, know the people, or stalk the bands. Instead, I was somewhat scene-adjacent, a curious observer with an enduring love for rock and roll, a kid who showed up in art spaces for mutual appreciation alongside strangers who swayed and nodded and bounced together. Discernment—the parsing into buckets labeled “single-serving song” and “long-term obsession”—happened automatically, and untuitively, over long afternoons and evenings spent flat on my bed in full starfish, eyes closed, absorbing album after album. And when I found a new favorite, I spinned that album on repeat, sometimes for months.

Poison The Well, my all-time favorite heavy group, spent close to a year spinning in disc trays to accomodate the spray of bangers spread liberally across three albums: The Opposite of December, Tear From The Read, and You Come Before You. And beyond Poison The Well, I slipped between metalcore to melodic hardcore, alternative rock, and screamo—what Pandora now mostly calls “2000s alternative.” Bands like From Autumn To Ashes, Atreyu, Hopesfall, Underoath, All That Remains, In Flames, Alexisonfire, Deftones, Finch, Houston Swing Engine, Thrice, Blindside, and a whole bunch more not listed here all had their moments in my obsessions list.

Still, I was a kid. I liked what I liked, didn’t like what I didn’t like, and didn’t care to put together the language necessary to explain my preferential choices. This, of course, meant that there was an almost chaotic lack of understanding on my part about what defined a “good” tune.

Since the cloud-tap shut off, I need a new drip.

The search for new bangers requires an unreal amount of dedication.

Early 2000s metal/hardcore was, broadly, full of bangers. All my favorite bands from the early 2000s scene still make their ways into my playlists today. (No, I don’t try to scream them; I like my neighbors.) And turning on my Pandora thumbprint station only guarantees a strange slipstream visit to the past, which I quite like. But one cannot stay firmly in the past without sacrificing the present and future, and there’s still much I want to accomplish during my time on this pale blue dot, so I need new tunes for the present, tunes that will help me usher in my boppin‘ future. Yet, just like nobody teaches adults how to find friends, nobody teaches adults how to find new tunes. The dedication required for the search is unreal.

Streaming services like Pandora and Spotify, when using playlists, can introduce the casual listener to a new song, but streaming is the absolute worst way to be introduced to a new band because the single song presented may not be THE banger, and if it is, the rest of the album may not hold up. (There’s a reason one-hit wonders lists exist in the world.)

Most of the albums I love are created as whole pieces, meaning that the album—not any single song—is the real banger. Tear From the Red opens and closes with the same disonnant note. Found In The Flood by The Bled rises and falls and rises again and lifts up the listener to blistering heights before crashing down into the cathartic release of a breakdown. While “Daylight Bombings” is my favorite track on the album (the crescendo!), I would do myself a disservice were I to listen to only the one track.

I’m not looking for flash-in-the-pan tracks I can’t remember ten minutes after hearing them. I’m looking for albums I can lose myself in, albums that make me feel alive, albums that stand the test of time over multiple listens through multiple phases and personal transformations. I’m looking for the albums to add to the soundtrack of my life.

But when I sat down with Bandcamp and began parsing through the metal and rock categories, I got overwhelmed, fast. Too much thrash, too many punk beats; too much distortion, too many growls; too much sludge, too many choices and, yet, not enough. Because often the same bands appeared in list after list for album after album, none of which fit me. And I realized something: I have specific and limited tastes for what constitutes “good,” but what’s good doesn’t always fit into any one genre box.

Over the years Poison The Well has not only been described as metalcore but also as post-hardcore, hardcore punk, and alternative metal among others.

What subgenre am I even looking for? Are new bands even writing the kinds of tunes I want to listen to?

Musical search mission: accepted

I’ve been thinking about the relationship between humans and art over the last few months, especially because I’m learning how to play drums and have been exploring songs to bang along with while I test my skills, increase my speed, accuracy, and confidence, and dive into syncopation and creative timing. And since I’m still keepin‘ on after all these years, I’m making the wild assumption that yes, bands are still writing the kinds of tunes I want to listen to, that good tunes are prevalent and available, even if they are being hidden by what

Ted Gioia

calls The Slop, that good tunes endure because such is the way of art borne of passion, especially after this piece by Ellen from Endwell.

Reimagining music in our lives – some insightful writing from around substack

In the article, Ellen writes:

How do we want to make and share music?

Do we want to continue the industrial model we have now that’s all about the numbers — number of streams, sales, hits, revenues and profits, stock market prices — with only a few people really making it?

Or are we more concerned with what we had in past golden ages of music — diversity, variety, idiosyncracy, vibrancy, innovation, creativity, and quality?

Is it that we’re not getting that now? Or is it that the system for finding and supporting the emergence and longevity of a diversity of creative talent no longer works?

From the musician’s perspective, it’s nice to see an article focused away from vanity metrics and the captive corporate system churning out slop. We do need to ask ourselves, as music consumers, what we want from the art and the artists who make it. And we do need to be brave enough to try new things, test a few albums, slog through the slop to find the precious and enduring gems hidden beneath.

Over the past ten years or so, I’ve really only landed on less than a handful of new bands I actually want to invest time in. Brutus is one such band, and I’ve a huge crush on Stefanie Mannaerts, who sings and plays drums. I mean, check out her live performance during “Fire” from Nest:

And without spending the equivalent of a 9-5 workday wading through Bandcamp, I’d never have found Hey, Satan, and their EP, Flamingoes, bops, hard, which is fitting given that the band features former members of Houston Swing Engine. Perhaps the only drawback to this short album is that no single track stands out as THE banger, yet the album itself does not a banger make.

While I expect Hey, Satan to stick around for a while, they are but one band.

And yes, my partner is talented as fuck. His band, Miles of Fire, churns out banger after banger, like “Conditional.” But I can’t expect him to spoonfeed me good tunes, either.

I’ll wade through Bandcamp again and again, watch closely the social media accounts of musicians I respect to see what they might be listening to, and curate a list of albums for the Fal of today even if it runs me ragged.

The search continues.

Even adventurers use the buddy system.

The search is long and tiresome, and I am but one person trying to sort through more than a decade of acts to find my diamonds, my obsession albums, my good tunes.

Right now, in my quest to learn drums, I’ve chosen four tracks from the early 2000s that make me excited to be alive.

They are:

• Anberlin’s “Feel Good Drag” from Never Take Friendship Personal, and, later, New Surrender (boppin‘ summertime anthem, anyone?)

• Finch’s “What It Is to Burn” from What It Is to Burn (those taps on the single bass pedal; holy cow, does my thigh burn! I sent a note to MaK in appreciation for his cover.)

• Alexisonfire’s “This Could Be Anywhere In the World” from Crisis (I told my partner I’ll learn this one even if it kills me, the track is that good, and Zoe McMillan covers this song with a cute lil stick flip, which my daughter was delighted to see.)

• Poison The Well’s “Ghostchant” from You Come Before You. (I’ve already begun learning the first ten seconds of this song on drums, and I honestly anticipate a minimum of 100 hours for this three-and-a-half-minute song from one of the few drummers I actually know by name, not just as “the drummer from X band.” Plus, it’s been two decades since I’ve needed to read sheet music or count music with a 5/8 time signature. In short, I’ve much to do!)

For the next two weeks or so, I’ll likely listen to these four track on repeat until I can tap them in my sleep—such is the way of the obsessive millennial learning new things—but after that, it’s game on.

Hit me with your bops!

Now comes the time when I ask for your recommendations. Pitch away!

Garage and small acts with real talent that are going unnoticed in the sea of slop; indie passion-fueled metalcore, melodic hardcore, post-hardcore, and alt-rock suggestions with pretty melodies, heavy beats, and delicious vocals that move from smooth to crunchy and back again.

If your band would fit on a stage with Poison The Well, Alexisonfire, Anberlin, or any of the various other bands mentioned throughout this article, I want to know about it. Bandcamp links much appreciated, as are direct artist websites. YouTube is fine, Spotify is . . . not my favorite, but at this point, I’m holding off on pickiness, saving that for the parsing itself.

So, send me your boppers, please. I want to get lost in an album, spread the good music word, and obsess about good tunes today and for the foreseeable future.

Until then, I’ll follow Poison The Well’s tour progress with excitement, nostalgia, and a refreshed longing for good tunes, especially since the group is still inspiring generations and writing bangers (like “Trembling Level,” below), and I’m looking forward to the next release.