For years now I have been eagerly awaiting the return of MTV's Head Bangers Ball to fill my empty void for metal videos. Let's face it music television just hasn't gave metal enough coverage since the rise and fall of grunge and the assorted bling bling induced artists that have completely taken over all realms of the music industry.

With years of patience I watched as we were tortured with the infestation of the now ever popular reality television onslaught as well as media hyped court coverage that seems to fuel America's interest more and more every day. Hoping someday that metal would once again raise its ugly head with a vengeance I desperately awaited the return of real metal. Well it's 2005 and Head Bangers Ball has returned but not with the gusto it once retained so proudly. After many strong attempts I still have yet to watch the full 2 hour installment and I can blame this fully on the so-called saviors of the metal world. Call me old but when almost every band follows the same format with little if not any originality I can't help but wonder what went wrong. Bands like The Red Chord are what the younger generation tag as metalcore and I just don't get it. Like hair metal of the eighties, bands like The Red Chord are strong contributes to a stale metal scene that will easily be added to the never ending acts that fill cut out bins across or fine country. Not to say Red Chord are talentless, it's just they seem to have followed a path that has already drove itself deep into the ground with over used riffing and mono tone barking vocals. Musically The Red Chord may have some decent chops and some very potent drumming it's just the over redundant barking vocals that bury this in a sea of followers soon to fall.

If Hot Topic is your only insight into what you believe is metal The Red Chord are easily for you but if your in search of that ground breaking metal artist then you'll just have to wait it out.