Audio By Carbonatix
The Fort Lauderdale-birthed four-piece Nonpoint came up in the late ’90s, a fertile time for experimental heavy rock in South Florida. At clubs such as Cheers, Fubar, and other one-name venues now long-defunct, they shared the bill with other arty but loud local leading lights such as Endo, Darwin’s Waiting Room, and the Groovenics. And although Endo was briefly signed to a major label, and it seemed bigger things would happen for its peers, Nonpoint was the only act of that scene to really break out on a massive scale. Perhaps it’s because the band eschewed much of the out-there stuff, stripping down its sound to its bare essence — hard-driving, aggressive grooves that dovetailed well with the so-called nu metal thing happening across the country.
But Nonpoint has amazingly outlasted even those national acts. The secret to the group’s success seems to be in the members’ rightful realization that their kind of band is best felt live. They spend the majority of their time on the road and thus have built and maintained a loyal, ever-growing following willing to buy plenty of tickets to get their faces rocked off. And though the band split with label Bieler Bros. earlier this year, Nonpoint has announced — via Twitter, of course! — it has recorded 20-plus songs to cull into a new album.
