News : Rock : The Brand New Heavies
Heavy rock loves a bit of potent symbolism. So when You Me At Six, one of the leading lights of Britain's renaissance in chunky riffs and anthemic choruses, sold out their December date at Wembley Arena, it was proof positive that guitar music was flourishing once again. There was icing on the cake, too – or, if you prefer, a curlicue around the tribal body art. Vying for the use of Wembley that night was the grand finale of The X Factor, which was forcibly relocated to Manchester, landing one in the eye of rock's sworn enemy, manufactured pop.
As genre acronyms go, it's clunky, but a NWONWOBHM (New Wave of New Wave of British Heavy Metal) seems to be gathering pace. The middle NWO refers, of course, to 80s bands like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden, who revived the sound pioneered by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath et al in the early 70s. Def Leppard's Sheffield is now home to Bring Me The Horizon, an ink-strewn foursome whose forthcoming album Sempiternal (on RCA) is one of the new breed's most anticipated releases of 2013.
Of course, heavy rock can't really be said to be back, as it never actually goes anywhere. While the charts, the general public and the mainstream media look the other way, "the heavy" bides its time. "It's always there … otherwise how would the Download festival (capacity 111,000) sell out every year, for starters?" eyerolls Katherine Parrott, senior marketing manager at Search and Destroy, a new Sony imprint dedicated to hard-edged music.
But as the rest of the music industry pitches and rolls, the consistency and dedication of heavy rock fans is increasingly seen as a safe port, it seems. EMI keeps signing contemporary bands like Rise To Remain (whose singer is the son of Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson and whose second album is due later this year) and Sacred Mother Tongue, of whom Metal Hammer said "SMT have what it takes to be amongst the greatest British metal bands of the last two decades." You Me At Six are on EMI subsidiary, Virgin.
Sony, meanwhile, set up Search and Destroy a year ago. It is run by Craig Jennings, also head honcho of Raw Power Management, which represents a significant proportion of the UK's up'n'coming screamers and riffers. Radio 1 held a dedicated event, Radio 1 Rocks, last autumn, recognising the appeal of the more melodic, post-emo sound with its demographic; Biffy Clyro headlined. Australian S&D outfit Tonight Alive have even been played on Fearne Cotton and Sara Cox's R1 shows.
For a sound that prides itself on aggressive volume, there are delicate genre nuances at play here. Dyed-in-the-wool rockists hate nothing more than their music being trendy. "Rock was out of fashion for so long that there's a kind of underlying fear that it's being brought back into fashion merely to be laughed at again. Like Carrie," notes Classic Rock reviews editor, Ian Fortnam.
But the current cohort have grown up with the stadium-filling sing-alongs of the Foo Fighters, the muscular sales of 90s nu-metal and the overwrought passion of emo. They are emotionally engaged, appeal to girls, and keen on mainstream approval.
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