I am a massive metal core fan, since the early days of the genre’s existence I’ve always found that the bands I gravitated towards were those that hit a few marks, combining old school metal, thrash, Swedish metal, and lyrics with meaning from vocalists that command the stage. Miss May I’s Levi Benton has the energy, charisma and lyrical content of the early days of the genre, matched with fantastic clean vocals and energy from bass player Ryan Neff. I feel like (as most people do), that this band has grown not only in age (starting as teenagers), but also grown exponentially in their sound, combining all the elements I listed above, while also being able to put their own mark on the genre and not fall into some of the cliche’ pitfalls that the metal core genre has been pushing out a lot of more recently.
The first time I saw them a few years ago, I had no idea who they were, not even on my radar, but watching this young band on stage back then at a much larger venue making the crowd go absolutely bonkers, with the barricades shaking, thinking they were going to topple, they won me over in a matter of moments.
Fast forward to this show at Goldfield Trading Post in Roseville, CA a few weeks ago and while this was a fairly stacked lineup – I was there for Miss May I. I finally got to see them again keeping in mind that now I was much more well versed in their discography. As a side note, I can’t wait to see where they head on the next album – but that’s for another story.
They came on stage with a lighting setup in a 500 person venue that could rival that of mid size venues that they designed themselves, which screamed absolute professionalism. This is a band that takes themselves extremely seriously (as they should) and also wants to give the fans an experience, which I feel is sometimes lost these days with younger bands, so it’s refreshing to see that. Then as they entered one by one, drummer Jerod Boyd stood on top of his drum kit screaming at the audience, the music kicked in, Levi ran on stage and the entire venue felt like it was shaking from the pure ferocity of the band, as well as the mosh pit that seemed to be never-ending the entire night.
They opened with Unconquered, and then went right into Hey Mister and other favorites Masses of a Dying Breed, Into Oblivion with an insane drum solo in between (again, giving the fans a show!), and ending on Forgive and Forget.
All I can say is that if you are an older metal core fan and you’re passing these guys up for whatever reason, you should not, they deserve your attention.
