Who: Birmingham, Alabama’s Maylene and the Sons of Disaster come by their thunderous, southern-fried hard rock honestly. Frontman Dallas Taylor honed his roar with Christian metalcore outfit Underoath before splitting with that band in 2003. Noting he was “ready for a change,” the singer left his hometown of Ocala, Florida, and headed to Birmingham, where a chance hang at his roommate’s band practice planted the seeds for MATSOD. “I didn’t think I’d pay music for a long time. I just wanted to have fun for the evening,” Taylor says. But the one-night stand became a committed relationship, one born in classic rock, tempered in metalcore and screamo and boasting a deeply spiritual core. Taylor weaves tales of redemption, justice and final judgment into the band’s lyrics, but with a light touch. “We have our beliefs, but we’re not out here to ram them down people’s throat,” Taylor says.
Sounds Like: After cutting their teeth on heavier fare, Taylor and his Maylene mates were keen to get back to their roots for latest album, III. “We wanted to do something that was different from us, from what we’d done,” Taylor says. “I grew up on classic rock, country and southern rock, so we said let’s take all that and start a band around it. It was almost showing respect to our childhood. When you’re younger, you try to run from it, but the older you get, you end up going back to the things you grew up with.” The result is a bluesy, boozy brutal mix that’s part swagger, part scream — modern swamp rock — that earned the band supports slots with Clutch, P.O.D., Throwdown, Zao and Taylor’s former mates Underoath. Despite the old school leanings of their sound, MATSOD still bring the intensity of their past har...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily