Last week, my 13 year old daughter and I were talking a bit about what “the kids these days” are listening to. I’m genuinely curious about these things, having several of my own kids these days, and interacting with others on a regular basis. I also desperately don’t want to become old and totally detached from current trends – they at least deserve a fair hearing before I reject them. I try and remain aware of stuff on Top 40 radio and all (despite the fact that I pretty much listen to public radio – both news and free form these days), and try to keep up, at least in broad strokes.

Through this pattern of observation, I do a pretty good job of staying current, but I’m pretty sure I have one very large blind spot in my reckoning of youth culture: I have no idea what your average middle school tough listens to – you know, that sort of agressive, hyper-masculine niche that, when I was but a lad, was filled by thrash and glam metal – Metallica and Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue and their ilk. That stuff never really got much radio play anyway; but kids still found it, thanks to MTV and rock magazines and word of mouth. For most parents, though, it was underground, except for the laughably incorrect or dated warnings streaming from more conservative pulpits and various moral guardians.

I expect that much of that niche today is filled by hip-hop rather than scrawny guys with guitars. However, the indelible image of the 12 year old social deviant with his first Squier Strat and looking for heroes to emulate still has to exist out there. Who do today’s budding guitar heroes look to for inspiration?

I still really don’t know, but my tentative lines of inquiry through the kid led me to an interesting and ultimately fascinating discovery:

Dear reader, I present to you Black Veil Brides:

Personally, I have a hard time reconciling the fact that the video above was made in 2011 and not, in fact, 1988. The Apocalyptic Cityscape. The Flames. The Costumes. The dual-lead B.C. Rich guitars. The synchronized rocking. It’s glam metal come back from the dead, rising from the ashes of W.A.S.P. and Faster Pussycat. After seeing this video, I went ahead and pulled up a bunch of old 80s metal videos for comparison (and to show the kid): The similarities are indeed uncanny.

I was actually intrigued enough to go out and purchased the band’s latest CD Set The World on Fire; which is pretty damned entertaining, in this old fogie’s opinion. Much of it sounds very old school glam; lots of trashy riffs and old school guitar noodlery. “Fallen Angel” above, is solid arena rock. The staccato thrash of “New Religion” has been rattling around on my mental soundtrack since yesterday afternoon. These young ghouls in greasepaint and leather are tripping all the right nostalgia circuits.

In the spirit of their forebears, the band have glam names like “Christian *CC* Coma” and “Jinxx”, and apply titles to themselves like “The Prophet” and “The Deviant” in the record liner notes. It’s almost like they’re a nostalgia act, but it doesn’t appear that way. The only things that really differentiate the band from their 80s ancestors are the general (and refreshing) lack of lyrical misogyny (they seem more likely to sing about gothy despair than objectifying the groupies) and a more modern gravelly vocal style rather than the high-pitched “testicles in a vice” operatics of decades past. But, lyrics like this are undeniably metal:

We are the unholy
We are the bastard sons of your media culture
Our minds, eyes and bodies were born of your exclusion
And illusion you hide behind

With disillusionment and angst like that on display, it’s no wonder that the stylized logo of BVB is plastered across the t-shirts of kids across the halls of America’s middle schools in 2012. Everything old is, indeed new again.