News.RttP{Mass. (heart) metal: Heavy rock is breaking from Bay State(from the herald on line)}

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/musicNews/view.bg?articleid=91311
Mass. (heart) metal: Heavy rock is breaking from Bay State
By Dave Wedge
Friday, June 24, 2005 - Updated: 12:18 PM EST

Think of Massachusetts music and you probably think of Aerosmith, New Kids on the Block, New Edition, the Cars and the J. Geils Band.
But bursting forth from the Bay State is an ear-splitting wave of harder, brasher bands that have metal fans worldwide thrusting their devil horns in the air, praising Massachusetts as their Mecca - andwondering just what's in Boston's dirty water.
\'\'Massachusetts is the spot right now. Massachusetts right now is just on fire,'' proclaims Devil Driver bassist and Hub native Jon Miller. \'\'I don't know what it is about Mass. but (the bands) are definitely having a major impact on the metal scene. I'm proud to be a part of it.''
Led by the breakout success of Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall - both of which released critically acclaimed, Billboard-charting CDs last year - a nonstop barrage of Mass.-bred metal bands has the industry buzzing.
Nowhere is the clout of the local metal scene more evident than in this weekend's Sounds of the Underground tour, which pulls into Lowell's Tsongas Arena tomorrow with three Massachusetts bands in tow: Unearth, All That Remains and The Red Chord.
Also on the bill is Devil Driver, which adds to the Mass. muscle with three Bay State-bred band members backing ex-Coal Chamber frontman Dez Fafara, a Californian.
\'\'I can't venture a guess why this area is the new hotbed for heavy music,'' says All That Remains singer Phil Labonte.\'\'I don't know what it is about a certai
n area, when there's a group of dudes that just pops with a certain sound.''
That sound - dubbed metalcore - varies, but is always heavy and aggressive and involves a hook-heavy combination of screaming and singing.
But what sets these bands apart from every other goth-metal/nu-metal hybrid is a street-tough sound earned from growing up in Boston's jagged hardcore scene. Today's wave of Bay State bands took their lumps at gritty club shows featuring hardcore bands such as Slapshot and Blood for Blood.
\'\'We all kind of grew up listening to the same stuff,'' Labonte says. \'Early Iron Maiden, Metallica. And then we kind of went through the rise of hardcore. It's just different people's interpretations of the same influences.''
Shadows Fall singer Brian Fair, whose band has sold 230,000 copies of its latest,\'\'The War Within,'' breaks it down even further.
\'\'It has to have the power. To me, metal is all about that hugeness,'' says Fair, who leads his band onto the hallowed Ozzfest main stage July 15 at Mansfield's Tweeter Center. \'\'It's got to have a memorable chorus, some killer riffs, and a great solo that you can remember. Wrap that all up, play some Testament riffs backwards, add some (Black) Sabbath and you're good.''
Also linking these bands is an almost incestuous sense of camaraderie.Labonte, for example, is the former singer for Shadows Fall, while Killswitch singer Howard Jones pulls double duty as frontman for Blood Has Been Shed.
\'\'It's just killer,'' says Fair. \'\'What's really cool is everyone in the bands who are spreading out there have been in the scene for a long time. The ones that did stick around are influencing the whole worldwide metal scene.''
In Europe, the Mass. metal phenomenon is even stronger with Killswitch, Shadows Fall, Unearth and All That Remains playing nightly to packed venues and festival crowds of 60,000-plus.
\'\'Shadows Fall forged a new sound, blending Swedish melodies with a U.S. hardcore sound that created metalcore,'' explains George Vallee, a Billerica native and publicist for California-based label Century Media. \'\'It was that sound that was something new and fresh in America. Now metal is on the rise again and Shadows and Killswitch are leading the way. It's weird that it all stemmed from the Northeast, but it's pretty damn cool.''
The Sounds of the Underground Tour at Lowell's Tsongas Arena, tomorrow from noon to 11 p.m. with Lamb of God, Clutch, Opeth, Poison the Well, From Autumn to Ashes, Unearth, Chimaira, GWAR, Norma Jean, Every Time I Die, Strapping Young Lad, Throwdown, All That Remains, Devil Driver, A Life Once Lost, The Red Chord, Full Blown Chaos and NORA. Tickets, $33.50, available at www.ticketmaster.com or 617-931-2000.