Anvil frontman Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow says modern metal is lacking in melody and is often performed by “non-talented” artists.
The outspoken singer believes his band’s brand of old-school metal has died out in America and has been replaced by “un-musical” noise.
Lips tells Classic Rock’s Dave Ling: “Sad to say that, in America at least, it’s become virtually non-existent. That really distresses me. A lot of metal is extraordinary in a technical sense but just so un-musical that you can barely listen to it. It’s a guy yelling and screaming into a microphone with no sense of melody. It’s just noise.
“The songs are so fast, they’re just one or two beats, changing time signatures all over the place – you can’t follow a damned thing.”
As well as the overly-technical aspect to the songs, the tendency for vocalists to scream rather than sing also grates with Lips.
He adds: “It seems that finding a real singer has become almost impossible, so what’s happened is that bands just have someone who yells and is good at talking to an audience. It’s opened the doors for people who are non-talented.
“For me, music has to have a rhythm with a melody. Without that, it’s not music.”
Read the full Anvil interview in the next issue of Classic Rock, which is available from June 17.
