Dead-Trend Friends

Well, this is probably gonna be a pretty short one, at least compared to the other posts so far, just some observations on the people I know on a more personal level in the Chicago area music scene (Chicago area I say ah say because a bunch of them are from the Summit/Stickney area, but play shows throughout Chicagoland).

Long story made short, I just recently joined a band.  They're called Lian Paranoia.  Probably about a year ago this time, a friend of mine joined these peeps as main guitarist.  I tagged along to some (a lot of) practices, went to many of their shows, became friends with them, they broke up a while later, stuff happened, I ended up joining as bassist when they got back together like three weeks ago.

I noticed recently that this band I'm now a part of, along with the other bands we're friends with, all represent a different facet of 90s-ish music, certain scenes you don't really see anymore.

Lian Paranoia, I'm not sure what to call besides "nu metal" without mashing together a bunch of terms to try to invent a genre.  Yeah it's not metal per se, but it's too heavy to be just "rock" or "alternative" (sorry, I think those terms are pretty outdated; the music world's just grown too large), and I'm personally against the term "alternative metal" existing, simply because just about every single band under that unfortunate label can be considered either nu metal or post-grunge, which are actual things.  To paint a better picture, I'd describe them (I still have trouble referring to LP as "us", as I've yet to write any material with them) as Alice Cooper meets Tool.  The theatricality, personality, subject matter, and heavy metaphor of the former with the raw emotion (thanks to our singer, Rob), heaviness, progressitivity (made up a word, deal with it), and time-changey polyrhythmic goodness of the latter.

Second band of this wee scene I befriended are a group called Short Story Inc.  They're a bit harder to define in a sense of where they fit into my bring-back-the-90s fever-vision, but they give me a distinctly out-of-time feel even if I could technically see their music thriving in today's day and age (which good God, just like the rest of the bands on here, I hope it does).  Think the thrashy skate-punk that only the 90s could properly deliver meets emo (bear with me a second here) back when it was still a type of hardcore.  And I mean REAL hardcore, not Warped-Tour-core.  Uber-personal lyrics, hard-edged yet strangely melodic guitars, heavy emphasis on vocal play.

Third would be Adisent, from Stickney.  Less hard to define but no less awesome, Adisent are a post-grunge WHERE THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING.  You will sit the fuck back down and read about my friends' bands.  Okay, they're post-grunge, but not in the way you might first think of.  They have catchy riffs instead of four-guitar-thick Howard-Bensoned power chord progressions, a tight three-piece dynamic, and, get this: good, intelligent lyrics.  Seriously, this guy sings me gravelly poetry.

Lastly and not leastly, unless by "least" you mean "youngest", we have the high-school-age heavy-hitters, Uptown Mayhem.  Pop-punk before it all sounded THE GODDAMN SAME.  Healthy blend of early, non-suck Green Day and Blink-182 with a hearty dose of All-American Rejects.

So there you have it, the Dead-Trend Friends.  Hopefully they'll read this (hmm... should probably start actually telling people about this blog), and it'll catch on and it'll be the name of an awesome tour.  Am I totally plugging the band I just joined plus the other local acts I like?  Totally.  Should you check them the fuck out?  Abso-tota-lutely.

TL;DR:
Listen to Lian Paranoia, Short Story Inc., Adisent, and Uptown Mayhem.  Like now.
Or I might cut you.