Blog Band Camp and its antidotes

We here at The A.V. Club really wanted to find an upside to this year’s WJJO Band Camp. Panning the annual hard-rock fest (which returns to Willow Island at Alliant Energy Center this Sunday) every year not only bores us, it also just reminds us how much Madison's concert lineup neglects the incredibly diverse, fertile world of heavy music year-round. This time around, my editor asked me to attempt a “lighter side of Band Camp” piece, in which I picked out a handful of bands that seemed to offer a glimmer of hope amongst the innocuous garbage that typically dominates the bill. Sure, I wasn't expecting anything to prick up my ears like death-metal legends Suffocation's April show at the Loft or a good local metal act like Buried Future, but one must hope.

After spending hours studying each band on the bill, I came up empty-handed, hung my head in shame, and told the Ed that I just couldn’t do it. Then a new idea came to us: Some of these bands actually have some great influences—which they end up compressing into a tight package of grimy fluff-rock—or at least great parallels that share some of the same qualities in a more redeeming way. In a measure of mild snobbery, we have picked out a few acts from 2009’s Band Camp to put up against a few outfits—some of which aren't even the least bit metal, mind you—that tackle similar influences with much less cynical results.

O ye wretched!: Mudvayne's "World So Cold" vs. Isis' "Holy Tears"

Only in a “world so cold” where “passion’s lost” and “all the trust is gone” would Band Camp headliners Mudvayne be able to sell homogenized sadness to a mass of 16-year-old, Hot Topic poster children via vocalist Chad Gray’s whiny warbling.

On the flipside, Isis (yes, yes, you may start your "hipster metal" whining now) is a band that ventures to some of the iciest corners of depressive rock music without bad poetry, dyed goatees, or “melodic” yelling. On “Holy Tears,” vocalist-guitarist Aaron Turner growls and croons his way above a sea of guttural chords and droning arrangements, as the expertly tasteful drumming of Aaron Harris provides a chillingly dynamic undercurrent.

Twitchy freaks: Powerman 5000's "Supernova Goes Pop" vs. Polysics' "Young OH! OH!"

While both of these bands come across as nerdy, Devo-worshipping sci-fi dorks, Powerman 5000 manages to drown out any of its creative attributes by continuously clinging to every horrid aspect of nü-metal: Sabbath-lite riffs that could be written by any 8-year-old with a guitar tuned to drop-D, sleazy talk-singing, and cheesily anthemic choruses that usually ride on some awful cliché. (For additional evidence, go to YouTube and watch them drop the “Bombshell,” show you what it’s like “When Worlds Collide,” and remind you that living so “Free” is a tragedy.)

Conversely, Tokyo’s Polysics have used their “tragic freedom” in a way that allows them to bend between Devo-influenced noise-rock and infectious synth-pop without sparing their distinguishably spastic sound.

When rock attacks rap: (Hed) PE's "Bartender" vs. Dumate's "Violince"

The fact that (Hed) PE vocalist Jahred Gomes ever managed to attain quasi-stardom with such hopelessly boring lyrics as “Hey bartender hit me with a double / and introduce me to that girl with the bubble” is a total travesty. Even worse is how Gomes’ ever-changing backing band has gotten away with back-pedaling through its tiny playbook of cheap riffs and flaccid funk grooves for eight albums.

Thankfully, Madison’s Dumate offer a far more substantial take on blending rap and live instrumentation. They're off in a world happily ignorant of the sterile, angst-ridden formula of (Hed) PE’s “songwriting” and instead rely on the fundamentals: clever lyrics, head-turning musicianship, and infectious samples.