An open letter

Dear Tony Brummel-

To cut to the chase: enough already. We get it; you’ll throw anything at the wall and see if it sticks. Cookie-cutter clones with embarrassingly huge stickers on the cover with phrases like “death riffs, punishing breakdowns, [and] mayhem inducing blast beats” are getting old. The game you’re playing with this mosh/nu-metal interpretation of hardcore is worn out and to make matters worse, it’s obvious that your influence has spread, as this specimen is native not to a nameless town in the midwest or central Jersey, but rather Australia, home of far better bands such as Bodyjar or the Living End.

This is, quite frankly, the last straw on the back of a camel that has been close to breaking for a while now. Simply getting Adam from former innovators Killswitch Engage is not enough to save any band from the curse of horribly cliched songwriting and terrible vocals. It’s not just about the amount of double bass and misplaced “brodown” chugga- chuggas but rather the fact that your label was once a bastion of the best of the scene and is now a pale shadow of it’s former self. Normally I’d be willing to say that this is the worst a label such as yours could put out but in recent years you’ve proven your dedication to proving statements like that to be false.

Parkway Drive are another sign of what is referred to as “the major label mentality” invading what was a thriving independent scene. A collection of the worst musical cliches, shoved into packaging indistinguishable from it’s peers with no regard for the actual quality of the content within. Regardless of how your tastes may have changed over the years I would like to believe you still have faith in not just the label “independent,” but the implied respect towards the listeners and ethics that it (used to) embody. While you obviously can’t pull this CD from the shelves, please let it be the last one. Return to innovation, rather than imitation, before it’s too late.

Thank you for your time-

Justin August
Punknews.org

P.S.: Oh, wait. This was released on Epitaph? Mr. Brett. Come now.

P.P.S.: Seriously? This isn’t a joke?