So. Yesterday, we got the following e-mail from an anonymous reader:
“BOB ZILLA’S NEW BAND ORPHANED TO HATRED HAS GOTTEN THE THUMBS UP FROM VINNIE PAUL HIMSELF! THEY JUST RELEASED A SONG OFF OF THE UPCOMING ALBUM MASTERED BY VULGAR’S HOWIE WEINBERG AND MIXED BY LONG TIME PANTERA ENGINEER STERLING WINFIELD!”
So first of all… Yeah, no shit “Vinnie Paul himself” gave Orphaned to Hatred the thumbs up. What’s he gonna do, say his own bandmate’s side project sucks? So that endorsement means about as much as one from Bobzilla’s mommy.
Second of all… I was immediately weary of Orphaned to Hatred’s apparent desire to exploit their Pantera connection, especially because that connection really isn’t all that strong — I mean, I had about as much to do with Pantera as Bobzilla did. Seriously. Maybe he knew those dudes and I didn’t, but neither of us were in the band, and we both probably purchased approximately the same amount of CDs, merch, etc.
But then I went to check out the band on their Facebook page, and I saw the below image, and that’s when I got really, really cranky:
So here we have Orphaned to Hatred, like MetalSucks, using the font known as “Shredded,” a.k.a. “The Pantera Font.” But there’s a vast difference between what we’re doing and what OtH is doing. Our use of the font is meant as a loving tribute to one of the best and most influential bands in the history of metal; here it’s being utilized specifically to beat you over the head with the fact that Bobzilla knew Dime and knows Vinnie Paul. Just in case the fact that he’s been in two bands with them and hired some of the same people that worked on Vulgar Display of Power wasn’t enough to remind you. It assumes that the fans are both slow and easily manipulated.
The text at the top of the image, of course, is another reminder that people who have worked with Pantera have worked with this band, too, but it’s that line about Bobzilla being “Dimebag’s bassist” that really gets me. Why isn’t he identified as “Hellyeah’s bassist” or even “Damageplan’s bassist?” Isn’t it extra-exploitative to specifically point to Dime that way, especially when Damageplan wasn’t a Dime solo project? I’m amazed it doesn’t just have a picture of Dime pointing at the camera above a caption that reads “HE WOULD HAVE WANTED YOU TO LISTEN TO THIS.”
So all of these depressing thoughts are going through my head when I finally hit “play” to listen to OtH’s song “The Brave and The Torture.” And holy crap IT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE PANTERA. I mean, it’s not nearly as good as Pantera, but every single thing about it just screams “PANTERA!” It’s so ridiculous that it actually did make me surprised to hear that Vinnie Paul would ever endorse it (assuming the sender of that e-mail was even correct about that), because it’s such a blatant rip-off.
Everything about this feels calculated and cynical to me. But maybe I’m not giving Bobzilla enough credit. Maybe his natural instinct is just to make unoriginal, gauche garbage.
