My friend has an 11 year old son, and was worried that all the modern heavy bands were too old for his generation. About the most “edgy” music that kids have today is Dubstep, which, admittedly, may also enjoyable – but if you look at the most popular thrash, hardcore, or metal bands right now, they’re all bands full of people for older age groups. So just how am I going to introduce my friends son to heavy music? Then I received the latest single by Metalcore / Post-Hardcore band, For The Better who come from outside of Northeastern, PA. Guess what the kid’s alright!
The mix of clean, death, and screamo vocals on this track is outstanding. The singer has a hell of a lot of vocal range. Dynamically, the music on this song is tight. Bass, drums, and guitar blast out staccato rhythms that positively shred. Incorporating the keyboard sound with their metal crosses boundaries few are willing to dabble with. I think it is amazing.
So how come this metalcore is cool for the kid? Well, for one the lyrics are sprightly clean, and then the melody is really cute and makes an awesome contrast to the gritty, ass kicking music. This is a song kids and parents could really enjoy together, for the simple that is a really clever reworking of “Fireflies” originally by Owl City. Get it now?
It’s the one that goes: “You would not believe your eyes, If ten million fireflies, Lit up the world as I fell asleep, ‘Cause they fill the open air, And leave teardrops everywhere, You’d think me rude but I would just stand and stare.” This cracked the charts world-wide with almost playful melody, and was adored by music fans of all ages.
The song has been sampled by Mac Miller, used by Weird Al Yankovic and covered by Cheryl Cole on a live radio show. But no one has actually got to grips with the song in the way that For The Better have.
They left the melody intact, but took the music section apart and rebuilt it from scratch, throwing in all the metalcore ‘niceties’. So with the clean vocals, you have death growl interludes, heavy guitar riffs, and double bass drumming in places.
Yet the amazing thing is this version doesn’t lose any of the charm that was so defining on the original. So for now, For The Better can play in my house at full volume, and my friend’s 11 year old kid can dig the metalcore groove along with me too!
The track can also be found on all digital download stores, including iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, Google Play.
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