'New Wave Of American Heavy Metal' Book Documents Over 600 Bands

Garry Sharpe-Young of Rockdetector has just published "New Wave of American Heavy Metal", a 376-page book with over 90 photos, featuring over 600 U.S. and Canadian alternative metal, emocore, hardcore, math metal, metal, metalcore, neo-thrash and screamo bands.

In the mid-'90s, in the wake of grunge, the metal movement underwent its most radical evolution to date, ushered in by a leaner, meaner crop of purist, aggressive acts in PANTERA, MACHINE HEAD, BIOHAZARD, LIFE OF AGONY, PRONG and SLIPKNOT as thrash fused with hardcore and death metal. As the millennium dawned this new found power exploded not only onto the U.S. touring circuit, but also the national album charts giving rise to a new generation of offshoots as screamo, emocore and metalcore.

In traditional Rockdetector style, executive editor Garry Sharpe-Young, author of 14 rock and metal titles to date, exhaustively documents these bands in painstaking detail with extensive historical biographies, line-ups, official URLs and full discographies including track lists, labels, catalogue numbers and chart positions.

"This is the first book to cover this new metal generation," says the author. "The metal scene in the USA is now so diverse, so healthy, it was important for Rockdetector to document it right now. The book is right up to the minute too, with band biographies current up to November 2005. I've got an awesome picture of Dime on the sleeve, taken by his friend Chad Lee. As soon as we saw that photo we knew it had to be the front cover."

As for the bands themselves? "Everyone is going to argue about who should be in this book and who shouldn't — that's great debate! I've included some of the older bands to show the real roots of metalcore, like AGNOSTIC FRONT and the whole NYHC, plus the group's that broke the metal scene into new territory after grunge — PANTERA, BIOHAZARD and MACHINE HEAD. From there it gets really diverse, crossing the spectrum from melodic death metal to emocore and everything in between. Most of these bands have no problem touring together so it seemed only right they should share the same pages."

The book features over 600 bands, including: 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, A LIFE ONCE LOST, ALKALINE TRIO, ALL THAT REMAINS, AS I LAY DYING, ATREYU, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, BIOHAZARD, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, BLEEDING THROUGH, BURY THE DEAD, BYZANTINE, CANNAE, CANDIRIA, CAVE IN, CHIMAIRA, CKY, COALESCE, CONVERGE, CRISIS, DAMAGEPLAN, DARKEST HOUR, DEVILDRIVER, DIECAST, DOWN, DROWNING POOL, EIGHTEEN VISIONS, EVERY TIME I DIE, FROM A SECOND STORY WINDOW, GLASSJAW, GOD FORBID, HATEBREED, HIGH ON FIRE, IF HOPE DIES, ION DISSONANCE, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, KITTIE, LAMB OF GOD, MACHINE HEAD, MARTYR A.D., MASTODON, MISERY SIGNALS, MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD, NEUROSIS, NORMA JEAN, OTEP, OVERCAST, PANTERA, POISON THE WELL, PREMONITIONS OF WAR, PRO-PAIN, RISE AGAINST, REMEMBERING NEVER, SHADOWS FALL, SLIPKNOT, SOCIETY 1, STILL REMAINS, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, STUCK MOJO, SUPERJOINT RITUAL, TERROR, THE ACACIA STRAIN, THE BLAMED, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, THE RED CHORD, THROWDOWN, TRIVIUM, UNEARTH, WINTER SOLSTICE, ZAO and many, many more.

There's more to come, too. A mammoth two-volume "Scandinavian Rock & Metal" is on its way for early 2006. "That's a monster!" says Garry. "Looking like two books, 600 pages each of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish bands."

Ordering information for "New Wave of American Heavy Metal", sample pages and a full list of bands included can be found at this location.