Black Tide

I’m a rocker through and through. Here’s a list of my favorite bands: AC/DC, Van Halen not Van Hagar, Skynyrd, Def Leppard…and now Black Tide.

They’re four teenagers from Miami who are one of only a handful of new metal bands I’ve liked in the last 15 years. The guitars sound crisp and the drums don’t sound like a machine (f Lars Ulrich for starting that trend on And Justice For All). Most important of all the singer doesn’t sound like Cookie Monster. I can’t emphasize this enough. I’ve lost count of how many bands that sounded great musically only to make me want to cockpunch the vocalist once he started singing. Like Mastodon.

Here’s a live cover of Metallica’s Hit The Lights off their debut Kill ‘Em All album.

One of the band members says that St. Anger sucks, and it most definitely does suck. But Kill ‘Em All is the shit. This is important. Music is a race against time. Bands almost invariably do their best stuff when they’re young so it’s important to get out as much stuff as you can early. The Rolling Stones are the best rock ‘n’ roll band ever, but they haven’t put out anything good in over 25 years. Metallica hasn’t put out anything good since And Justice For All, and even the merits of that album are debatable.

So Black Tide can distinguish between what is allsome and what is teh suck. That’s very uncommon for teenagers. And because of their youth, they have a head start. Hopefully they can put out a lot of great stuff before they invariably get old and start sucking.

So check them out while they’re still great.