Too many bands dramatically change styles, leaving legions of fans disappointed.
5. Fireflight
Fireflight went from hard rock to poppy EDM and it didn’t work. I actually didn’t mind Resuscitate when I first heard it on RadioU… until the staticy electronic bridge. But aside from that (and Anberlin’s Stephen Christian’s guest vocals on Safety) the rest of the album falls flat. It doesn’t sound like Fireflight, and all the songs kinda sound the same.
For Those Who Wait (2010)
We Are Alive (2015)
4. Nine Lashes
When I first heard Galaxy I was convinced that Spotify had stuck a track from another band with the same name on the wrong profile. I was wrong, and it was then followed by a whole album in the same vein. To be fair, Ascend isn’t that bad, once you come to expect it to sound like Hillsong Young & Free instead of hard rock. The album does get better as it progresses, and Christ In Me is definitely one of their best.
The band has hinted they will make heavier music again, but under a different name. This doesn’t really bode well with me, if you’re going to make your original style of music under a different name and produce a vastly different genre in your original band, it just doesn’t make sense to me. All it does is alienate fans.
Anthem Of The Lonely (2011)
Galaxy (2016)
3. Bring Me The Horizon
Bring Me The Horizon is one of the few bands that the change in style worked for. I believe the reason for this is that they didn’t go too soft. Going from deathcore to effectively mainstream rock is still a big change, but they would still be classified as a “heavy” band. I’m not a fan of their earlier stuff, and their change in style has brought in a whole new demographic of fans, including me (though Sempiternal was my introduction to the band). There’s still hard aggressive songs with unclean vocals such as Throne and Happy Song, and Bring Me The Horizon’s style now more closely resembles early 2000s Linkin Park than it does the mainstream pop/EDM of other bands here.
The Sadness Will Never End feat. Sam Carter from Architects (2008)
Oh No (2015)
2. Asking Alexandria
Fans were pretty happy when Danny Worsnop returned in late 2016 after about 18 months away from the band. Despite The Black being a fantastic album, fans were excited about new music with the vocalist whose voice defined the metalcore band. The comeback album released in December 2017 however was a disappointing radio rock album at best and featured the especially hated rap song “Empire”.
The Final Episode (2009)
Alone In A Room (2017)
1. Linkin Park
I’m a big fan of ballads, so I rank songs such as Castle Of Glass, Powerless and Breaking The Habit alongside the classics like Numb, What I’ve Done and In The End as their best work. When I first heard Heavy, I quite liked it. The song works well and would work well on an album in the way Castle Of Glass does. Unfortunately the rest of the album (aside from the beautiful title track) is poppier, more electronic and frankly boring.