All-inclusive is the attitude at Bonnaroo (which explains former acts like Jay-Z) and it’s really a good thing over all. There’s a little bit of every style of music on the farm, including black metal. This year’s big heavy chunk is DeafHeaven from San Francisco!

These dudes are all over the map playing fests and clubs and bigger stages. They’ve been featured on NPR and gawd knows how many other music rags. They are known for their pummeling style and the front-man’s stage antics. NPR goes on and on about how “melodic” the music is.

If screaming at a microphone is your idea of melodic music, you’re gonna totally flip over DeafHeaven.

Me… I’m going to be at some other stage. Sorry guys, screaming about how beautiful it must be to die is not why I attend Bonnaroo. I’m there to experience the beauty of life. To be fair, I do like the intros to 6 out of 7 songs I’ve listened to (even if they are in the same key) it’s when the “song” starts that I want to run away and listen to Beyonce (I’ve never listened to her).

Update: 1026 pm 2/26/14

Since I really don’t like trash talking a band, and I really just don’t like most modern metal, I wanted to give these guys a fair chance. So, I asked a friend, Chase McCutcheon for his opinion. Chase is a damn good musician, himself, he has studied music and theory extensively and pounds guitars with Murfreesboro band, Trigger Digit.

One thing that I really enjoy on their song “Dream House” on the Sunbather album is the powerful intro. It feels like there is a lot of energy to the band, and that would probably be seen live. They have good use of ambient lead guitar. The vocals aren’t mixed too loudly. It’s also cool that the songs is written in a major key. You don’t hear a lot of music like this with songs in Major keys. I also like the use of the metal drums without the boring string skipping that a lot of bands use that beat for.

“Irresistible” Has a very tasteful clean intro, with a smooth talking lead line that makes the intro sound like it’s going somewhere. I also really enjoy the use of delay. It almost has a metallica-ish feel to it. I also enjoy the suspended chords in the song. The use of piano makes it beautiful as well. It definitely accomplishes it’s mission of sounding pretty.

You can meet Chase McCutcheon Here. As far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to write for MidTNMusic any time.