No 429: Black Tide

Hometown: Miami, Florida.
The lineup: Gabriel Garcia (lead vocals, guitar), Zakk Sander (bass), Steven Spence (drums), Austin Diaz (guitar).
The background: We've had Black Sabbath, Black Mountain, Black Widow, Black Flame, Black Funeral, Black Murder – Black Murder?!?!?! – and now there's Black Tide. This year's winners of Kerrang!'s best international newcomer award, currently on tour with Bullet for My Valentine, Black Tide are the latest "Black" metal band, although they're not a black metal band and they're not necessarily a Black Metal band, if you see what we mean.
Black Metal, according to Wikipedia, "often employs fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, double-kick drumming, and unconventional song structure". Which pretty much makes Black Tide a Black Metal band. But there's pop in what they do. Weirdly, their big monster melodies and crunchy, guitar-driven music falls somewhere between thrash/traditional metal and the scuzzier end of 80s glam/hair metal. Skid Row? See you there. We're no experts, but we can hear elements of Metallica and Guns N' Roses in Black Tide, which augurs well, even if they've got a long way to go before they can make the world wait for a Chinese Democracy. Young, you say? Put it this way: when the band formed, back in 2004 as Radio, guitarist Garcia was 11 years old and original second guitarist Alex Nuñez was a comparatively ancient 13. Today, with a highly rated debut album and tour support slots with Avenged Sevenfold, Lordi, Static-X and Ozzy Osbourne under their studded belts, they're all still under 20, with Garcia only 15, and their oldest member, drummer Spence, a wizened, weary 19. Two of the band are still in high school. And soon after gaining a slot at Ozzfest this summer, they were kicked off because the second stage they were playing was sponsored by Jägermeister and none of them were over the legal drinking age. We're not sure where they get it from, but these baby-faced titans of teen metal sound as though they've spent the last decade or so years ransacking their parents' record collections, if indeed their parents own records by Dio, Iron Maiden and Van Halen. If they only own records by Paul Simon and Elton John, like most parents, then we're going to need another theory. But let's assume they grew up with 80s metal and 90s thrash, because on their debut album Light from Above, which includes a cover of Metallica's first written song, Hit the Lights, they regurgitate – Garcia especially sounds as though he's trying to emit a particularly stubborn fur ball – the best, that is to say the fastest and furious-est and fist-pumping-est, of the last 20 years of shrieks and riffs, incendiary rhythms and screechy guitar solos. If you haven't heard a metal album since the halcyon days of spandex and poodle-cuts, Light from Above should fill in the gaps, sounding as it does like an idiot's guide to 80s and 90s hard rock, a veritable Now That's What I Call Metal of a capsule summation. Hence the charges of plagiarism and lack of originality levelled at Black Tide. But then, give them a chance; they haven't even hit puberty yet. The buzz: "Black Tide have the potential to release one of the - if not the - best metal albums ever. But this album isn't it."
The truth: Meet the hair-metal Hanson.
Most likely to: Run to the hills.
Least likely to: Bring your daughter to the slaughter.
What to buy: The single Shockwave will be released on Interscope through Polydor in February 2009. Light From Above is out now.
File next to: Metallica, Guns 'N Roses, Iron Maiden, Dio.
Links: www.blacktidemusic.com
www.myspace.com/blacktide
Tomorrow's new band: Passion Pit.