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Dear Shadows Fall

Dear Shadows Fall,

I’m feeling a little weird writing a letter to the entire band, because I don’t intend for this be a fan letter. But my original heading, “Dear Brian,” felt false. If there’s one thing I’ve learned doing this music journalism thing, it’s that a band is multiple people. For all I know, Brian doesn’t even write his own lyrics, though I’m assuming he does, as a dude with dreads that long is most likely also the dude who would call a song “The Power of I and I.” Anyway.

My first Shadows Fall show was at the old L’Amours in Bay Ridge. I was 15 or 16. It was a memorable night—I’d come alone, and was chain-smoking Black Death cigarettes (remember those, with the skull in the top hat?). It was hot outside, and while in line for the show, chatting up some cute metal girls, I fainted. One minute, I’m standing, and there’s this buzzing sensation in my teeth, and the next I’m being hauled to my feet by stunned onlookers. This seemed especially prophetic later in the night, because Brian fell during the show, whether from dehydration or tripping on a wire I don’t know. But we in the front row shoved him to his feet, and you guys played “Fleshhold,” which was incredible, and I danced my ass off. Those girls avoided me for the rest of the night; I don’t blame them, given that I’d probably scared the piss out of them.

Back to your music. Your two albums, Of One Blood and The Art of Balance, were so important to me as a teenager who only wanted to listen to chuggy old-school thrash. I was amazed that anyone was doing that kind of shit in the modern day. You guys were your own thing, more metal than God Forbid, not as sappy as Killswitch Engage. But you also weren’t just buying into retro thrash stylings and writing about sewer mutants and cloven hooves and the like. You were writing about purity of spirit and how TV can poison your mind. It was very cool.

When I saw you guys last night at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, I did so with an excuse on my lips to anyone who asked me what I was up to. Come on, I loved them as a teenager, I told all my kvlter-than-thou friends. 16-year-old Scab would kick my ass if I didn’t go. After missing all of the openers in favor of getting kind of drunk, my girlfriend and I walked into the club to find a room less packed than I’d expected. Where were all the holdouts from the early 2000s? The actual old-school kids of today? I had to remind myself that the word “metalcore” was still a fresh wound within the scene, and that it wasn’t surprising that many people might have rolled their eyes at seeing one of the champions of that genre. Think like a journalist, dude.

But then you took the stage, and a grin sprouted on my face, and I pumped my fist and banged my head and laughed my ass off. It was so much fun seeing you guys go apeshit once more. Here we all were, the old gang! Matt, Jason, Brian, Paul, and Jonathan, chugging away at the songs of my youth. When you went into “Crushing Belial,” I politely asked my lady to hold my bag and then went windmilling into the crowd, throwing up the namesake of this website and doing my best death metal bellow while screaming about awaiting the wrath of a god betrayed. There were smiles, high fives, back slaps all around, and I wondered what the next song to get me really riled up would be. Maybe a little “Idle Hands,” or some “Revel In My Loss”?

It was “Inspiration On Demand.” Turns out I’d forgotten about that song. Turns out I knew every word.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been, I don’t know, I’ve been trying really hard. It never used to be like that, back when I still bought and listened to your records regularly. My creative output was so effortless, and seemed to be carried by my energy and charm. There was no need to push myself, because my mind and heart could just open up and release pure gold, shit that people would respond to immediately. But these days, doing what I do feels so often like an upward battle. No one’s interested in the ideas I’m passionate about—too weird, too dark—and more often than not my creativity is considered an instrument that people want me to point in the most financially viable direction. There are certain projects that I dread working on, that make me sick to think about writing.

So, seeing you guys play that song, singing along to the lyrics I didn’t know were with me the whole time, it shook me. It got me. I don’t even love The War Within (no offense, just being honest), but that track had somehow stuck with me as important. And there I was, drenched in beer sweat and screaming the chorus at the stage and feeling something new. Feeling connected, or at least understood.

That, I guess, is my point: good on you guys. My plans to show up and get a big stupid nostalgia trip turned into me having a personal connection with a song I hadn’t thought about in ages, and feeling less alone because of it. In the world I live in, where bands do so much posturing and self-aggrandizement, it’s so incredible to feel something genuine and pure for a song. Thinking like a journalist is bullshit. No amount of snark or cynicism or metal street cred can change the fact that I was deeply touched by your music last night, and maybe that’s not worth much to anyone else in the grander scheme of things, but it means a whole fucking lot to me.

Hail,
Scab

— Scab Casserole