Creative Response to Luke's "Why Do Bands Change Their Sound"

     When I was in high school, I went to concerts almost every weekend. Whether it was a local show or a larger band playing a bigger venue, I was there and was as close to the front of the crowd as I could get. I'll always remember those nights, sweaty and sore, pressed up against other bodies, or a metal barricade, screaming out the lyrics to my favorite songs.
     These days, I don't have the opportunities (or the funds) to go to so many shows. I'm lucky if I go to a few concerts in a year, let alone in a month. When I think about the bands I used to see, I probably still know all the lyrics to the songs, but not any of the recent songs. This is because the band's changed their sound and I lost interest.
     Luke mentions that many bands "abandon their initial sound in exchange for a different, sometimes better or worse, sound." For some bands, this can be devastating for their record sales. Audience expect one sound or genre of music and get something completely different. For others, however, a new sound provides successful opportunities to explore different styles of music.
     All of this had me thinking about Bring Me The Horizon, one of my favorite bands when I was in high school. Way back when, they were considered a "metalcore" band from Sheffield, England. Their guitars were heavy and their vocals were a mix of high pitched screams and gutteral growls. I loved this sound and voraciously listened to all of their albums as quickly as they came out.

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

     This changed for me with the release of their third album, "There is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There is a Heaven, Let's Keep it a Secret." While this wasn't a bad album, for some reason I didn't connect with it in a way that I had with the other albums. I didn't really follow them for a few years; I listened to a few singles from "Sempiternal," their fourth studio album, but still wasn't really into them again. 

     Then a few days ago, I heard their latest sound "Drown." The lyrics really jump out to me and have made me more willing to come back to the band. The sound is different, but it's a good different. It's a lot softer, but part of that is because a guitarrist left the band and was replaced by a pianist.

     Even though I haven't listened to the band in a while, I'm coming back to them because of another change of sound. I think it's interesting how the changing sound of a band can have such a strong negative or positive effect.