All That Remains frontman Phil Labonte took to Facebook to point that while God Forbid, Bleeding Through and Shadows Fall had all called it quits in recent months, All That Remains will continue on and and transcend metal. That is not an exaggeration. Here is his post:
"So in the past six months bleeding through called it quits, god forbid called it quits, and just today shadows fall has announced that for all intents and purposes they're calling it quits. I'm so glad ATR have transcended 'metal' and have become 'musicians.'"
About ten comments into the thread, someone calls Labonte out for essentially taking a proverbial dump on these bands, to which Labonte responds in the comments section accordingly.
"I'm not commenting on the quality of the music they made. All three bands have written great great music. But I feel like they didn't push their song writing past what is acceptable by their fans. And so they didn't evolve."
Which is then followed up by a whole different status.
"Guys, that last post was about 'metal' and it wasn't about the quality of the bands mentioned. It was a reflection on how arbitrary and fickle 'metal' fans are. Stop lookin for hate."
To which I say this- why not make what you want to say abundantly clear right off the bat? Why go through to separate statuses and a whole bunch of comments to continue clarifying an original post when that could've all been said? Not to mention the insinuation in that first post is that you're not a real musician until you've pushed beyond metal and the fact that Labonte directly contradicts himself by saying the bands he mentioned never evolved and then says he wasn't commenting on the quality of the bands… but alright. I do agree with Labonte on metal fans being a bunch of fickle bastards from time to time though, depending on the band.
Y'all know how I feel about bands sticking to their guns just as much as evolving- whatever's gonna make them happy as artists and put a smile on at least one fan's face. What say you, comments section?
[via The PRP]
