[From All Music.com-Mark Deming] When he was just 19, Hunter Hayes became one of the hottest new stars in country music, signing with a major label and attracting plenty of press attention and airplay. Despite his youth, this wasn't really new for him -- he was playing for paying audiences at the age of five 
and cut his first album when he was nine. Hayes grew up on Cajun music, evolving into a different sound in his teens that blends contemporary country and polished pop songwriting and production, not unlike Taylor Swift, who tapped Hayes to open shows on her Speak Now tour. Hayes also was a studio prodigy who was producing his own recordings and playing most of his own instrumental accompaniment by the time he broke through with 2011's Hunter Hayes. 2014's Storyline was a critically and commercially successful follow up, while The 21 Project was an experiment in presenting the same set of songs in three different styles. 2023's Sober pushed up his pop influences and added a dash of R&B.
[from All Music.com-Bradley Torreano] Emerging from Southern California during the rap-metal explosion around the turn of the century, Atreyu crafted a hardcore sound much closer to Agnostic Front or Hatebreed. Their warped, detuned guitars 
were matched by pounding drums and acidic vocals, which gave the material a distinct metalcore edge. Originally operating under the moniker Retribution, the band eventually changed their name to Atreyu, after a character from the Michael Ende-penned fantasy book The Neverending Story, and released their debut album, Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, in 2002 on Victory Records. They continued to refine their punitive but melodic post-hardcore sound on career best-of offerings like Lead Sails Paper Anchor (2007) and Congregation of the Damned (2009), before going on hiatus in 2011. They reconvened four years later and released their sixth studio effort, Long Live, with In Our Wake following in 2018. After a change in vocalists, the band reintroduced themselves with 2021's Baptize.
[from AllMusic.com-Stephen Thomas Erlewine] Out of all the bands that emerged in the immediate aftermath of punk rock in the late '70s, few were as enduring and popular as the Cure. Led through 
numerous incarnations by guitarist/vocalist Robert Smith, the band initially became well-known for its slow, gloomy dirges and Smith's exaggeratedly gothic look, a public image that often hid the diversity of the Cure's music. At the outset, they played jagged, edgy pop songs before slowly evolving into a more textured outfit. They were one of the bands that built the foundations for goth rock, but by the time goth caught on in the mid-'80s, the Cure had moved toward a more polished and thoughtful (if still often depressing) sound. By the end of the '80s, the band had crossed over into the mainstream not only in their native England, but also in the United States and in various parts of Europe. After embracing melody and synth pop on 1985's The Head on the Door, the band hit an artistic high-water mark with their stunningly pained and beautiful 1989 epic Disintegration, and scored their first number one album on the U.K. charts with 1992's Wish. New studio output slowed somewhat as the band soldiered on, but the Cure remained a popular concert draw into the 2000s and beyond, and their influence could be heard clearly on scores of new bands in the new millennium, including many that had little to do with goth.
[From All Music.com-James Christopher Monger] One of the leading lights of the European metal resurgence in the mid- to late '90s, Sweden's Hammerfall helped bring melodic power metal back to the forefront of a scene that was struggling to find 
its footing amidst the alt-rock/grunge boom. Emerging in 1997 with the Swedish Grammy-winning Glory to the Brave, subsequent outings like Renegade (2000), Threshold (2006), (r)Evolution (2014), and Dominion (2019) proved to be just as popular throughout Europe and the Americas as they were at home, with multiple releases going gold. In February 2022, HammerFall issued the Fredrik Nordström-produced Hammer of Dawn.
[From All Music.com-Gregory Heaney] Salt Lake City, Utah's Chelsea Grin channel the brutality of their namesake (the phrase refers to a grisly facial torture practice) with their punishing brand of breakdown-heavy deathcore. Citing influences like .Suicide Silence, Slayer, Whitechapel, and A Perfect 
Circle, the band employed a lethal blend of death metal and post-hardcore on their 2010 debut Desolation of Eden. Subsequent efforts like Ashes to Ashes (2014), Eternal Nightmare (2018), Suffer in Hell (2022), and Suffer in Heaven (2023) introduced elements of djent, doom, black, symphonic, and progressive metal into the mix, but since forming in 2007, Chelsea Grin have proudly and vocally shouldered the deathcore mantle.
[From All Music.com-James Christopher Monger] A punishing deathcore group based out of San Diego, Carnifex's uncompromising blend of traditional death metal and metallic hardcore is built on a foundation forged by severe metal luminaries like Slayer, Carcass, and In Flames. Emerging in 2005, Carnifex 
issued a pair of well-received albums before lurching out from the underground with their uncompromising third studio effort, 2010's Hell Chose Me. Subsequent outings like Die Without Hope, World War X, and Graveside Confessions continued to mine the depths of extreme metal, adding symphonic black metal to their already formidable sonic arsenal.
In 2007 he performed on Blanchard's landmark score for director Spike Lee's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) and continued to work with vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Scott signed to Concord in 2012 and Conviction, his sophomore effort with Oracle, appeared on the label in March of 2013. It was produced by Derrick Hodge of the Robert 
Glasper Experiment. In 2015, after signing with Blue Note, Kendrick Scott & the Oracle issued We Are the Drum, that included a guest appearance by Grammy-winning vocalist Lizz Wright. Four years and many tours later, the drummer returned with his sophomore Blue Note date, A Wall Becomes a Bridge, a 12-song cycle about personal responsibility and overcoming obstacles. Again produced by Hodge, the set featured turntablist Jahi Sundance as a sixth member of the Oracle and was released in early April of 2019. Read more @All Music.com (Click Here)