Auditory Abominations: "Hero" - Skillet

And now, back to the foray of bad heavy metal, last time I looked at bad heavy metal tracks I looked at two songs by big named bands, and one song by a band I did not like. I don't think that it's any coincidence that both Skillet and P.O.D. are Christian Metal bands. Honestly, Christian music should not be so bad, I mean the messages are usually fine, but the performances are usually so tasteless, it's like watching Kevin Costner in Waterworld, not a whole lot of anything really.

Actually, that may also be my biggest problem with Skillet, that there is really just no flavour to them, I mean when you think about heavy metal bands, there is always something that makes them stand out, System of a Down has Serj Tankian, GWAR has their personas, Alice Cooper has his stage act, Metallica has their songs, and Rammstein is Rammstein. Skillet has none of that, no incredible frontman, no enjoyable personas, no on-stage antics, no really amazing songs, nothing, but hey, I picked this song at random, maybe this one is okay.

The song opens with one of the weakest riffs I have ever heard. Compare this opening riff to something like "Du Hast", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Ace of Spades" or "Back in Black", you know how all those riffs just get you immediately hooked? This one doesn't, and even has some weird stopping effect to it, kind of like Metalstep, the fusion genre of Heavy Metal and Dubstep. The riff also reminds me of a weaker version of "The Diary of Jane", which sounded like a slower and sludgier version of the opening riff to "Sweet Child O' Mine", jeez do we have enough of the ripping-off here?

Out of nowhere, the instrumentals just kind of die and shift into the rest of the song, where I really have no comment to make on the instrumentals, they just sound, meh. The big problem with this song is the vocalist, if you took Chester Bennington, David Draimen, and Ian Gillan, threw them all into a blender and sifted out any vocal power, than you'd get something like John L. Cooper. The track also has backing vocals by his wife Korey, and she sounds like Ke$ha, I have no other thing to compare her to, she sounds like Ke$ha, that's it.

Like I said, a lot of messages in these kinds of songs are not terrible, although this one is kind of obvious, talking about how mankind needs a hero. Insert Castlevania: Symphony of the Night reference here. The message is not terrible, although since this is Christian metal you can assume whom the hero they are reffering to is.

Thankfully, the lyrics aren't total trash, I mean they are quite preachy, and I think they aren't using some metaphors properly, I mean in this context what does "Just another war" mean? Like, another war on religion? A war on Christians? Another war in general? And then it ends with the usual "I'll stand up and fight" lyrics that were so much better in a song like "Stand Up and Shout" because that song actually makes me want to stand up and shout, where tis makes me want to shut it off. But the lyrics are about average, I'm not expecting Freddie Mercury levels of writing here anyway.

Really, the song itself is bland, but the song also has uninspired instrumentals, rather blah vocalists, and meh lyrics. I wonder if this truly is the best we can get from Christian Music, even if not, this genre may be a recurring one on this blog.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and believe what you want to believe in, that's what I say.