7. Killswitch Engage: the rush of adrenaline my teenage self needed
This band helped me survive Nebraska.
When I was 19, two things happened that changed the course of my life:
1: I got a labor-intensive job at a warehouse. 2: I committed to joining the Air Force. 2.5: I got into Killswitch Engage.
All my talk about the negativity of metalcore and screaming music goes out the window with the Howard Jones era of KSE. “Daylight Dies” was the album that got me through miles on the treadmill on cold, cloudy days in Nebraska on the weekends when I had enough energy left over from throwing boxes at work. I needed that pulsing, percussive, wildly emotive, unequivocally masculine music, which was the outgrowth of the collision between good and evil in the soul of man. They echoed the battles I was fighting with myself: throttling the darker, lazier side of myself into something I could take joy in.
I remember thinking when I lived in California how the most beautiful places in the world were where ocean collided with rock. The most beautiful times in my life have been when good forces collided with my darker side and I was elevated to a new standard of existence. In that key moment of my life, when I was fighting off the urge to stagnate into mediocrity, Killswitch Engage was the most perfect soundtrack.
That was also the point in my life when I began shedding any kind of music that I perceived to be negative. I lost patience with bands like Underoath and their quasi-nihilism: I felt like I had enough bullshit to deal with in my own life and their constant complaining wasn’t helping me. I needed some positivity mixed in with the angst.
My favorite album is “As Daylight Dies”. I know it’s basic, but it hit me just right. I spent hours trying to sing “Arms of Sorrow” and I sort of learned “My Curse.” Those songs are still jams.
I want to conclude by taking a moment to fanboy over Howard Jones. My God, the man can express the language of the soul so powerfully. While I was refreshing my memory last night, I discovered he and Jesse Leach recorded a duet on their last album. And it was amazing.
PS: I can’t resist making this one minor complaint: there is an excessive use of passive voice and dangling participles in KSE lyrics and it bothers me.
The screaming music trilogy part 3. (For part 1 click here, part 2 here)
If you’ve read this far, you’re definitely an interesting and thoughtful person. Let’s keep in touch. Instagram
