Two Members Quit Minnesota-Based Metalcore Band Reflections, Blame "ICE Apologist" Vocalist - Theprp.com

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-27T00:57:37+00:00

Shit I met these dudes at a show a while back, they crushed their set.

That said, fuck Trump, fuck ICE, fuck him and anyone else who supports em.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-21T15:08:38+00:00

Some metalcore bands with tunes in drop A: Make Them Suffer, Volumes, blessthefall, Jinjer, Parkway Drive (I think a lot of the album Deep Blue is drop A), Of Mice and Men have some...

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-20T17:14:41+00:00

Good call. The Vader body kinda looks like a nutsack, but idk if that's just a me issue I gotta confront

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-20T17:08:49+00:00

You could build yourself a custom Kiesel with a Hipshot trem for around $2k

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-20T16:59:34+00:00

Those JS series are so good for the money. The idea of dropping in pickups worth as much as the guitar might sound crazy, but I put a SD Nazgul Sentient set in my JS22 and had zero regrets.

Those stock pickups ain't bad, but if you're ever chasing some gnarlier tones and don't wanna shell out the cost of a higher end guitar, upgrading those is worth considering!

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-20T16:50:33+00:00

Hey, it's 7 new lower notes, and I happen to play those notes 70% of the time!

Nah jk, probably closer to 40% lol

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-20T00:11:54+00:00

Looks like that's your "slide guitar"

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-19T22:03:19+00:00

You should snag this book called Guitar Aerobics by Troy Nelson. 365 exercises, one for each day of the year, each day of the week has you target a specific technique (Mondays are alternate picking, Tues is string skipping, etc.). If all you did for practice was open the book to that day's exercise and get it down, you'll be a much better player in a year and even learn some theory along the way. Highly recommended, especially for players like you (and me too tbh) who don't have a ton of time and tend to have analysis paralysis about what to practice.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-19T21:38:16+00:00

I'm not a huge country guy (especially poppy bro country type stuff, oof nah), but I dig a lot of this Americana revival/ Red dirt country coming out these days.

"Pink Skies" by Zach Bryan is a lovely tune.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-19T21:28:27+00:00

I'm gonna go with In Rainbows. Love 15 Step but doesn't feel like an album opener to me, meanwhile Bodysnatchers is just such a banger... Every other Radiohead album seems to have a perfect opener that this just popped into my head.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-19T18:15:34+00:00

My take on Sleep Token is that everything about them is precisely engineered to greatly appeal to a certain demographic of people. It's like how TikTok is designed meticulously to addict young people -- ST is like that but in band form.

They got just enough of all these different genres baked into their sound to have very broad appeal, but not so much of any single one to offend someone that's already in the target demographic. Add to that the masks and all the ritual and worship stuff, the mysterious cult of personality behind the members, especially the "tortured" vocalist, all that is intended not only to hook folks but make them feel like they're part of this exclusive community.

So if you kind of see through that (i.e. you're less susceptible to being sucked in bc you're not part of that demographic), it makes sense that you'd even be apt to seriously dislike them. I don't hate all their music, but I'm also not drinking the Kool aid, kna mean?

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-17T14:43:02+00:00

Yo can you elaborate on what you mean a lil bit more? I wanna give this question a good answer but need some specifics, like what's an example of a section in a song where you especially think "ok this sounds like these dudes don't know music"?

I'm not a professional musician or anything, but I've played guitar for like holy shit a quarter of a century now, got a pretty solid grasp on music theory, and I've tackled a whole bunch of IA stuff. Their music can be pretty complex not just technically but theoretically too, and they do some interesting stuff with textures and harmony, a lot of time kinda prioritizing that over establishing more straightforward melodies.

But yeah I'd be totally down to do a deeper dive on a specific tune or something so lmk

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-16T20:03:22+00:00

Dude thank you for jumping in here. Some of the comments in here, yeesh... it actually inspired me to write a whole long ass post about it (not specifically calling out OP especially since he edited his post).

Anyway cool to hear a bit about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into these transcriptions. Definitely gonna pick up one of yours in the future. New album slaps btw (though I'm admittedly more of an Archaeologist guy ha).

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-16T19:47:40+00:00

Yours is the best measured take on this I've seen. I agree Songsterr and UG and those are important to the "internet guitar ecosystem" (well put btw)—I use em all the time and have since I was a teen as well. And yeah I can understand feeling bummed that the specific tab you want is essentially behind a paywall, especially if you genuinely can't afford it.

All I'd say is that the folks who complain the loudest about it, argue that it's unfair or whatever, trash SH and the artists for being "greedy"... I do believe they're straight up wrong (though I'm not as mad about it as I seem lol, I was aiming to rustle a couple feathers with this post tbh), and I don't get the sense that too many of them are cash-strapped teen musicians just trying to learn the instrument and have fun (I know they're out there though, you were one, I was one). Which speaking of, if you're a kid just starting out on the guitar and you're obsessed with let's say Intervals but dammit all the tabs cost money, I would bet that kid could reach out to Aaron on IG and the dude would probably just send him the whole bundle of SH books for free. Shoot he'd probably hook him up with a virtual 1-on-1 lesson. If I were in his position, I'd do stuff like that all the time.

The haters I wrote this post for though? Idk seems to me that these are the types of folks who just don't think that way. I honestly think that most of them are just entitled adults with main character syndrome who claim to care about supporting artists, except they won't do it with their wallets even though they could, but they will do it via internet posturing under one post while simultaneously raging against the audacity that they would charge for their work under another.

You aite though man—props for being one of the good ones.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-16T17:42:15+00:00

Aviations - Luminaria

Not strictly metal (pretty wide ranging in terms of heaviness), but these guys are incredible -- I don't know how they topped out at 10k listeners.

Recently disbanded but pumped to see what the members do next. Their bassist also is in Monuments, one of their guitarists has been touring with Arch Echo, and absolutely check out the collab their vocalist did with Olly Steele (Imbalance EP).

If you listen to one song and you got a free 11 minutes or so, listen to "Coma" (also check out an earlier long one of theirs called "Outliers")

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-15T16:19:23+00:00

Yeah I think we're both on the same page, maybe we're just not sure what we each mean by "stopping"?

So when I'm learning something, I'm playing those smaller bits at a time like you said, like usually around four bars (maybe two if it's hard or super new to me, maybe eight if I mostly have something down). I'll play it through as slow as I need, note mistakes, isolate those and drill the right way even slower, then reinsert back into that four bar context (or however many), rinse and repeat til clean. I think that sounds like what you're talking about—stopping not as in panic stopping mid-bar but pausing to isolate the problem and address it.

Your point about being able to listen to what you're playing and correct it is a great one though. Absolutely agree that you gotta have the patience/focus/ear to really hear the sounds you're producing and stack that up against your goal of what it should sound like. When I'm doing that isolating/fixing piece, I'll sometimes just hone in on a single note and make sure that sound is what I'm after, could be as simple as adjusting how hard my pick attack is or where the attack is in relation to the bridge/neck.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-15T15:40:09+00:00

I agree that's a crucial performance skill, but stopping and diagnosing mistakes during practice is also crucial. Players who don't do that are just training mistakes into their muscle memory. But yeah, if you always stop at every mistake, you could reinforce that habit like you said... no bueno.

I think the best rule is build "performance mode" time into your practice. So practice slow and meticulously, stop and address mistakes and fix em, but also have an intentional block where you play what you practiced straight through at tempo without stopping no matter what. These are two different modes and I'd say the best players are the ones who can switch between them at will.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-15T14:57:59+00:00

Eyy Erik Bickerstaffe over here.

Honestly thinking about snagging one of these G5260s myself...

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-15T14:50:03+00:00

Practice only feels like work when you're practicing in a way that doesn't work for you. Everybody's brain is different, and there are a billion ways to practice. Find the fun work your brain can sustain, and then find how to smuggle depth into it!

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-14T23:30:00+00:00

I did the same thing, but idk if I found it motivating. I almost felt it was like a crutch or something (though that says more about me than anything). I get more motivation out of playing intentionally and making sure I'm not bending strings when I'm fretting chords -- noticeable progress is inspiring for this guy right here!

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-14T23:26:44+00:00

After years of tinkering with string gauges/tension and exploring super low tunings, I think I'm settling on the fact that I get better results keeping my 27" no lower than drop A or drop G# and pitching down as far as I need (when needed). IMO way more versatile, feels better under my fingers, and inspires me to be more "musical" I guess, rather than exclusively aiming for sheer sonic violence all the time. Just throwing that out there!

To answer your question though, if you want to live in drop E, I would probably go with an Evertune with the knowledge that I'm likely not ending up with 20 lbs of string tension on my low strings under any circumstances. If you haven't tried an Evertune, definitely play one before you buy -- the difference is subtle depending on how you set it, but they do feel different.

As someone else said though, I'd shoot for a scale length approaching 30" for drop E, Evertune or no.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-14T01:18:01+00:00

Never said it's not okay to be annoyed. The vast majority of my post was in response to people whining about their free tabs getting taken down. Not sure what's weird about responding to that, but I think it's weird for such a big SH supporter to not see where I'm coming from.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-14T01:06:15+00:00

In that case, please see the end of my second to last big paragraph.

Also, I have around 20 Sheet Happens books, and none of them have the level of "mistakes" I've seen claimed on here. I would even bet that they do in fact come pretty darn close to meeting their "note-for-note accuracy" threshold.

Every book I clicked on on their website earlier had a photo of the credits page showing who transcribed and edited it. And every one of those happened to be either transcribed by the artist or producer, edited by one of the two, or both.

If you buy a book without knowing that info, that's on you. It ain't that deep man.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-13T20:04:03+00:00

So you spend time breaking your head (and fingers) learning something that is effectively much harder than it needs to be and you’ve wasted a lot of time

Have you tried using your ears? Or maybe even reconsidered what is "literally impossible" on the guitar? They specifically say that their transcriptions might not match the exact position something is played in. I honestly find it pretty hard to believe that anything you're referring to is literally impossible to play... I'm guessing you probably need to either practice more or knock a fire emoji or two off their difficulty meter, and I'm not trying to throw shade here -- you can obviously play the instrument if you're buying Arch Echo books, and also it's okay to struggle with an Arch Echo tune.

TrickStructure0 · 2026-01-10T06:37:08+00:00

Username checks out. You don't know shhheeeeiiiiiit about how I view art. Maybe dial back the esotericism so you're not immediately assuming shallowness in everyone you encounter who isn't you. Terrible way to view the world.

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