Released: 2006
The rise of the awkwardly misnomered nu-metal never had much of a feel or permanency in a commercial sense, but it did pull bands into the light who might otherwise have continued to exist only underground. The ripple effects were wide ranging, so whilst the turgid Nickleback and hand gnawingly trite Limp Bizkit rose to unfortunate levels of prominence, the likes of Slipknot, Disturbed and System of A Down all reached new audiences, in doing so bending the rules of what was or wasn’t mainstream.
Killswitch Engage had formed from the ashes of the now largely forgotten metalcore pioneers Overcast and Aftershock, but it was the recruitment in 2002 of vocalist Howard Jones as a replacement for Jesse Leach that catalysed them. With Jones in place their third album The End of Heartache let in melody amongst the grinding riffs, scoring a Grammy nomination in the process. It’s follow up As Daylight Dies took the process further, leaning more on texture amongst the tattoo of drums and screeching riffs.
The metal community being the metal community some declared a sell out, but despite licensing deals with video games and the WWE, there was a subtlety to the likes of My Curse which helped it rise above the nu-metal tag. Alternately grandiose – this strain of music is never shy – and becalmed, Jones shreds and then sings, a banshee of the titular curse looking for absolution. Leach returned in 2012, his predecessor having taken Killswitch Engage to places this kind of noise had rarely been before.
The Voice Of Unreason 