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| Eighteen Visions redefines
metal scene |
By
Kevin DeLury
Senior Staff Writer |
Special to The AppalachianUnderground metal act
Eighteen Visions uses drug references in many of its songs,
but the group considers themselves “straight-edged.”
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The realm of
underground metal music has generally been one that thrives
on a bare-bones mentality of music for music’s sake.
In the 1980s while Bon Jovi and Poison brought
metal into the limelight as a bunch of pretty boys, lurking
not too far off in the shadows was the rest of the metal world,
waiting for the eminent downfall of metal’s pretty boys.
Years later, the same morals hold true.
Yet could it be possible to try and forge an alliance of showmanship
and musical integrity?
California hardcore act Eighteen Visions
certainly states a convincing argument.
Touring with bigger acts such as Kittie,
Mushroomhead, and Lamb of God, Eighteen Visions started out
basically enough as a run-of-the-mill hardcore group. |
Touring with bigger
acts such as Kittie, Mushroomhead, and Lamb of God, Eighteen
Visions started out basically enough as a run-of-the-mill
hardcore group.
While maintaining a comfortable level of popularity within
the underground community, distinguishing them from other
acts may have been a bit difficult.
On the release of their latest album, “Vanity,”
the group carves out its own sound that still takes cues from
their earlier thrash days but likewise borrows from early
90s alternative: think Stone Temple Pilots getting viciously
assaulted by Everytime I Die.
While “Vanity” cemented a definitive Eighteen Visions
sound, it also marked the end of their tours with heavier
acts.
“This will probably be the last metal tour you see Eighteen
Visions doing,” lead vocalist James Hart said.
“The stuff that we’re doing now and the stuff on
Vanity is more of like a melodic approach and more of a rock
approach to music, and we feel that on a metal tour we’re
not going to be as successful accomplishing what we want to
do,” he said.
What Eighteen Visions seems to be doing is taking the best
elements of a rock ‘n’ roll show and combining them
with their signature sound.
On their first headlining tour with Himsa, Underoath, and
Atreyu, the band showed up in matching outfits, television
props and a light show.
This kind of performance has been labeled “selling out”
by many in the underground community, but it doesn’t
seem to faze Hart.
“I think the bands like us and Atreyu get shunned more
because we have a certain look or because we have videos on
MTV,” he said. “It’s like old-school hardcore
is coming back in and that’s the thing, so kids turn
their backs on us just because of the way we look.”
While Eighteen Visions’ success may label them “sell
outs” by many, their music and videos remain as abrasive
as ever, the best example as of late being their video for
the song “You Broke like Glass.”
In it, two lesbians grope one another throughout the course
of the song, until one sees the other cheating and subsequently
commits suicide.
“Obviously our song doesn’t have anything to do
with lesbians,” Hart said. “It deals with betrayal
and it deals with love.
“The relevance to the girl overdosing on drugs to the
song is that in the song, I had a good friend who strayed
away from how he was living his life and kind of went off
the deep end with drugs and broke down as a person,”
he said.
The sentiment in the video as well as the story behind it,
is only further driven home by the chorus of “And I choke/at
the thought of you.”
While there are many fatalistic drug references in “Vanity”
as well as their other albums, they are likewise matches by
not so thinly veiled references to their straight-edge lifestyle.
In many of Eighteen Visions’ songs, Hart laments about
losing friends and relationships to drugs.
However he says that his commitment to straight edge is a
personal decision.
“We’re all straight-edge, but we’re not going
out there trying to get any messages across,” Hart said.
“If your personal ideas clash with ours, that’s
OK.”
Eighteen Visions will be continuing to tour the United States
this summer with Strung Out. |
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