"Time will not be kind to What Once Was which is unfortunate because they were a hidden gem in the increasingly crowded and stagnant “metalcore” genre of the mid-00s. One could make the argument that metalcore had already been steadily dropping in quality/creativity and rising in popularity before the turn of the century but I feel the mid-00s marked a turning point in shitty music. Whereas a lot of bands at the time were concentrating on how many breakdowns they could fit into one song and retarded “mosh calls”, What Once Was made thoughtful, creative and well written metalcore songs with a strong balance between heavy, punishing riffs and introspective, emo-ish guitar noodling. Instead of lyrics proclaiming how tough or hard the members of the band were they featured gang vocals such as, “We are tired of fighting. We are wasting our time.” Which if I’m not mistaken was a direct response to the dumbasses spamming breakdowns and encouraging boneheadedness I mentioned earlier. That’s not to say WOW shows were never violent or got out of hand. If you ever went to a show featuring WOW, The Lazuline Midnight and The Kirkbride Complex you know what I mean. Things got thrown. Member of What Once Was went on to be in Phoenixpyre, The Carrier, The Bonus Army, Nepenthe, Dry Heave and a shit load of other bands" Less LIghts More Fights <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/What+Once+Was">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.