LIMP BIZKIT RESURRECTS THE NU METAL DEBATE

So Limp Bizkit is back. More significantly, Wes Borland is back. The respected guitarist has a volatile history with the band but has never been able to achieve the success of LB with his own musical ventures, which have included Big Dumb Face, Eat the Day and Black Light Burns. Of his reconnection with LB, Borland, in a joint statement with frontman Fred Durst, says, “We decided we were more disgusted and bored with the state of heavy popular music than we were with each other. Regardless of where our separate paths have taken us, we recognize there is a powerful and unique energy with this particular group of people we have not found anywhere else.” The resurgence of Durst and his homies has re-awoken a debate that has plagued the metal community since the early 90s: is nu metal, metal? The genre seems to have become the shame of the metal fraternity in recent years and yet it has birthed some truly significant acts including Slipknot, Deftones, Incubus, System of a Down and Korn – innovative bands that have manipulated the genre and developed highly individual sounds. As unique as they are, these bands are lumped within the very broad definition of the nu metal sub-genre. Nu metal is exactly what the name implies: ‘new metal’. It boasts a vocal and instrumental fusion of sound: nu metal experiments with the amalgamation of styles of music that have influenced metal, more mainstream musical genres, and the traditional metal sound. So the likes of jazz, industrial, grunge, punk, thrash, hip-hop, funk and electronica have been ‘metalised’, much to the horror of metal purists. (more…)