https://www.facebook.com/threeinchesofb ... cyAXM1XC5l



Suddenly I'm feeling extremely nostalgic. I'd love an "Advance and Vanquish" 20 year anniversary tour... and is it really that old already? Damn. One of the first 'trad metal' revival albums I think I heard, back before it was a big thing (and some people were calling it 'metalcore' because of Jamie's harsh vocals, lol).

Holy shit. Literally my first metal show when I was 14, they started it all for me. Advance and Vanquish and Fire Up The Blades are two of my favorite albums of all time. Even if it's a single show/fest appearance I will 100% be there!

There's just something that hits right when listening to "Trial Of Champions" and hearing that zoomy baseball stadium organ popping up. Schlock, but the good kind.

I’ve been low key expecting this for a couple years for now. They’ve become a HUGE influence on the NWOTHM scene and are due for some vindication.

Hot damn! Advance and Vanquish and Fire Up the Blades were my favourites by these guys, they were pretty great the one time I was able to see them live. I'm 100% down for this and hope they make it out my way so I can see them again.

Cool. I've always enjoyed these guys.

I think they were ahead of their time in a sense. I really think albums like Advance and Vanquish and Fire Up The Blades would've made a much bigger splash if they came out in the last three years than in the mid-2000's. The blackened speed/heavy metal thing is WAY more popular now than it was back then.

You know it's gonna smell crazy in that first reunion show.

Real talk, USPM fans rejoice.

They came along at the wrong time, so it could go well for them now the general scene isn't so inclined to treat them with animosity. Hopefully the harsh vocalist is back, their few where they just did pure throwback trad were lame, they need that bit of -core/extreme edge to stand out and Pipes doesn't have the range to do it alone.

I was totally late to the party with these guys, I discovered them when their last album Long Live heavy metal came out, Happy to see them back!

This is SO fucking weird - because I was LITERALLY just thinking this last Thursday. I was listening to some 3IOB during my workout and thought "every other fucking band ever reunites. Why can't these guys?"

That's so good to read.
They stopped at their top.

Ehhhh I think their last album is their worst and not particularly unique. Their period with dueling harsh/clean vocals is what really sets them apart from other bands in the genre.

Bullshit.

I think all their albums are quite good... though "Advance and Vanquish" will always be my favorite, and I do prefer them with Jamie and Cam handling vocals together.

I'd be interested in hearing how you think they've been a big influence on newer traditional bands, actually.

I've always been wary of them but they do have some quality stuff. There were a few reasons. I was 14 in 2004 and everything even vaguely influenced (read: marred) by metalcore was anathema to my tastes (still is, but I'd say I'm less militant nowadays). Secondly, the lyrical themes and vocal delivery seemed silly and it a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" kinda way (CP: Cirith Ungol and Griffin - ridiculous vocals but deadly serious delivery). Listening now, I can definitely hear why people like them - it's just weird how 2004 they are whilst also trying to be 1984. I think the metal scene had a really odd relationship with traditional heavy metal in those days (or maybe that was just certain parts of the metal press). I'm glad people are stoked to them back.

My experience has been fairly anecdotal but it’s like how there are a lot of musicians my age (early to mid-thirties) who play stoner-doom and are hugely influenced by The Sword. Both bands had fairly similar reputations in their respective genres back in the day with that whole “not sure if ironic” aesthetic and only seemed to be accepted later on. Airacobra, Axxios, and Lords of the Trident are just a few examples of bands directly influenced by them. Hell, I relayed this information to the guys in my band and we all flipped our shit.

I know people like to think of modern trad as just variations of Iron Maiden and Manilla Road imitators, but there are more nuances that pop up the deeper you get into it and the more bands you talk to about their influences.

They've got a sense of humor, but I don't think that means they're fake (and they're not as over-the-top about it as something like Gloryhammer or - God forbid - Nanowar). The music has some real energy to it and definitely gets my blood pumping.

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I remember loving em as a young metalhead in 04, but the internet not being *super* kind to them. Yet this apparent reunion tease has been met with almost *unanimous* hype from my metalhead friends online. Kinda wild.

I didn't care much for their last album at all, but I'm still pretty hyped for this.

KILL THE ORCS! SLAY THE ORCS! DESTROY THE ORCS!

Love them. Excited to hear some new material in the future.

They were a weird band because they were formed by a bunch of 'core kids who wanted to form a 'traditional' metal band despite probably not knowing all that much about the style, then sort of learned on the job when they unexpectedly blew up. They didn't even have clean vocals for their first couple of years. The first album is cool, but pretty mindless and not exactly stacked with riffs. I got into them on that album but they never quite met my expectations even though I did enjoy Advance and Vanquish.

I actually thought they got a lot better on the later, post-Roadrunner albums. Hagberg and Clark had a lot more about them than the original guitarists, and I preferred not only Hagberg's vocal style to Hooper's but also how they used the harsh vocals more sparingly instead of a constant wall of noise.

One of my favorite fun metal facts is that Fire Up The Blades is the ONLY album ever produced by Joey Jordison: https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/ ... dison/5212

Man I feel old. I remember seeing them open for Black Witchery in ‘99. They were always tagged on to extreme metal gigs, probably due to the Allfather connections with Cam.

This is why I never got into this band, (and why I'm not keen on crediting them with NWOTHM). It's more or less the story of a less famous Avenged Sevenfold.

This isn't even actually true, if you look at the past bands members of the classic lineup played in they were mostly death and sludge metal bands (like Allfather as cultofkraken mentioned). Some of the original members played in a classic rock band called Pride Tiger, but they were far from being in any way associated with the metalcore scene.

You sound like all those people back in the day who said Black Dahlia Murder weren't death metal because they had short hair. Even if this was true about 3IOB, which is isn't, who the fuck cares where they came from or what they used to sound like?

Yeah, they weren't core kids and it wouldn't really matter if they were anyway. Sumerlands is full of people that were in hardcore bands and that band gets a lot of love here (as they should). 3IOB aren't nor were they ever a core band.

Haha for what it's worth, I didn't mean "core kids" to be taken as pejorative. This is why I don't post much anymore.

As far as I'd always known, their original members all came from the local hardcore scene. Hooper is about as cut and dried an example of a 'core vocalist as you'll get, but that was the only aspect of their sound that had any real carryover.

So? Almost every single North American metal band formed in the early 2000s came from the local hardcore scene, that's pretty much all there was at the time.

So, nothing, it was just an observation. I've been listening to them for more or less exactly 20 years now, I'm obviously a fan of the band.

Reunion show announced! January 13, 2024 in Vancouver with Unto Others. I'm definitely going.

They put up a band photo alongside the show poster on their socials, and it does NOT feature Jamie Hooper. It would have made this reunion even better if he were a part of it too.

Yeah, they confirmed on Facebook they tried to include Jamie but he couldn't do it.

Just bought my tickets! It's selling so well they already added a second show the night before.

oh, man. flying that time of the year in Canada is always a crap-shoot with cancellations and delays due to weather, but i may have to take a shot at that one. Love both those bands so much and didn't get to see Unto Others (when they were still known as Idle Hands) on the covid-cancelled Mayhem/Abbath tour in 2020.

Dear 3IOB: if you're reading this, I would very much like a full North American tour with Unto Others please. I cannot afford to fly to and stay in Canada.

3IOB's entire social media feed is just people commenting begging for a tour. You really think bands aren't aware that not everyone can travel for a one-off show?

So the reunion show has been selling so insanely well that they've added TWO more shows at the same venue. I cannot imagine them seeing the crazy demand and not doing a full NA tour if they hadn't already been planning one to begin with.

Depending on how far they take this, I'm starting to wonder if Ash will stay in Revocation.

You surely realize most people who used to be in bands generally moved on with their lives, got careers, started families, etc. There is a huge difference in playing a reunion show in your hometown compared to hitting the road for a month+, especially when you haven't done it in almost a decade. Just because there is demand for something doesn't make it easy. Not to mention 3IOB were never really that popular in the States, so it's still a huge gamble to venture outside of their home region during the hardest time to tour in history.