In what could either be seen as a ploy for media attention - we grabbed the bait, didn't we - or a metal fan genuinely calling out his heroes on their bullshit, Earache Records has released a press statement regarding a scathing blog posting by their act White Wizzard.
At his HardTimes.ca site, White Wizzard bassist Jon Leon tears a strip off of heavy metal legends Metallica and Queensrÿche, saying they played a crucial role in the genre's disintegration in the early 1990s.
Surprisingly, Leon's tone is relatively intuitive, pointing out nothing to do with either bands' musicianship or creativity, but rather a sense of losing their sense of rebellion and/or individualism:
His entry reads: "Metallica's track six: 'Don't Tread On Me' was a track lyrically that actually called upon peoples' patriotism and glorified support of the U.S. government and the blind devotion of patriotism without questioning... It was an odd 180 to say the least..... lines like 'Love it or leave it,' were a sharp contrast to the lines on And Justice For All... To have such a strong lyrical stance on the justice album that was so anti-system and exposing the lies and inspiring heavily to question it... it seemed odd that this album would be silent in this regard and then on top of it there was this patriotic song that encouraged a blind devotion to country."
Leon essentially says the same regarding Queensrÿche's song "Empire," off its 1990 namesake album, which calls for, as Leon puts it, "more cops on the street to avoid the kind of uprising the previous album had almost seemed to push for." Leon might be pushing a little hard at times, but the overall sentiment is rather interesting.
Furthermore, there's a joke in here about how he's obviously right about those bands turning metal sucky, given his own act's output, but we'll leave that ticking bomb alone, mostly because this is hilarious:
At his HardTimes.ca site, White Wizzard bassist Jon Leon tears a strip off of heavy metal legends Metallica and Queensrÿche, saying they played a crucial role in the genre's disintegration in the early 1990s.
Surprisingly, Leon's tone is relatively intuitive, pointing out nothing to do with either bands' musicianship or creativity, but rather a sense of losing their sense of rebellion and/or individualism:
His entry reads: "Metallica's track six: 'Don't Tread On Me' was a track lyrically that actually called upon peoples' patriotism and glorified support of the U.S. government and the blind devotion of patriotism without questioning... It was an odd 180 to say the least..... lines like 'Love it or leave it,' were a sharp contrast to the lines on And Justice For All... To have such a strong lyrical stance on the justice album that was so anti-system and exposing the lies and inspiring heavily to question it... it seemed odd that this album would be silent in this regard and then on top of it there was this patriotic song that encouraged a blind devotion to country."
Leon essentially says the same regarding Queensrÿche's song "Empire," off its 1990 namesake album, which calls for, as Leon puts it, "more cops on the street to avoid the kind of uprising the previous album had almost seemed to push for." Leon might be pushing a little hard at times, but the overall sentiment is rather interesting.
Furthermore, there's a joke in here about how he's obviously right about those bands turning metal sucky, given his own act's output, but we'll leave that ticking bomb alone, mostly because this is hilarious:
