[Disclaimer: while most of us here at Tuonela Magazine have good taste in music, Vincent tends to hate everything that the rest of us enjoy, to a comedic degree. Thus, we occasionally let him run rampant with his alternative opinions.]
So, you’re reading an article on a Finnish music site. Odds are that not only do you know who LOST SOCIETY are, you probably have an opinion on them. They showed up in the scene in the 2010s and broke ground with their impressive musicianship, all while still in their teens. Their third album, “Braindead” even hit number 3 on the Official Finnish Album Chart. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Their sound started off as recognizably thrash metal, but has since taken on more modern elements, with “No Absolution“ being far more melodic than the earlier material, at least per our reviews, as I haven’t listened to it myself. The first album, “Trash All Over You,” I dismissed as “pizza thrash” (followers of the philosophy of thrash being good even when it’s not) when it came out. I’ve never really had any beef with the band – I just haven’t been keeping a very close eye on them since. Every now and then I’ve come across some of their more obviously metalcore-y tracks and given them an unenthused skip. Other than that, though, I’ve figured I’d live and let live. It’s not for me, but that’s par for my course.
Enter today’s Song of the Day! There are no words to describe how much I hate this. It has all the whiny, irritating, MTV, edgy, emo, teen angst of the nu-metal hits of yesteryear. Start-to-finish, just utterly unbearable. From the verses that seem to scream, “it’s not a phase, Mom!” to the oh-so-tortured chorus about how supposedly wild the storyteller is, all the way down to the predictable breakdown in the bridge… all of this is made even more insufferable by the video, wherein singer Samy Elbanna carries himself like an attention hungry teen, incessantly mugging for the camera like he’s making a Tiktok or Instagram story, or whatever. As if he’s expecting a legion of fangirls to fawn over every nuance. Hand in your thrash metal badge, boys; we’re not in Kansas anymore. As bad as this is, I’d have let it be. If it wasn’t for that one, nagging feeling. That irritable sensation in the back of my neck, as if something was calling out from the recesses of my mind. Something that had gotten lodged between the folds of my brain. Not unlike a piece of popcorn that just wouldn’t come unstuck. “Wait… where have I heard this before?”
It’s LINKIN PARK. Motherfucker! To the tee! The melodies, the sound. This isn’t like LINKIN PARK. This is LINKIN PARK. If this came on the radio and someone said it was LINKIN PARK, I’d probably buy it. I thought we were over this! Like, as a society. They even took the name straight off “What I’ve Done.” I know everyone recycles ideas. Every band has accidentally done an eerily familiar riff. There is such a thing as sense-memory. Ever notice how much Heath Ledger’s Joker resembles Brandon Lee’s The Crow? Everybody does it. But this is so much more than that. It’s like they’ve absorbed the very essence of LINKIN PARK and imbued it into every aspect of this song. This doesn’t seem like an honest mistake – more like an utter disgrace. In fact, I [retch] prefer LINKIN PARK‘s version. As edgy as it is, I’ll take a bland U2-type snooze over something that’s constantly trying to actively piss me off.
It’s not that I’m just an old fuddy-duddy. I’m 33, thank you very much. The point isn’t even that I don’t get the sound of the youth. The point is that this isn’t even that! This garbage was hot 20-some years ago! This isn’t your generation’s thing; it’s mine. And lemme tell ya, you didn’t win any friends in metal circles with these antics. My advice for LOST SOCIETY, if they want to be the voice of the young, is to re-evaluate. Take a step back. Think this over. Find a whole new sound. It doesn’t have to be original, just original enough that I can’t dismiss it this easily. Then post another awful video for it, so I can hate on it as well.
