FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
The great pacing throughout the album makes you wonder why we haven’t heard such glorious blistering thrash from the lads earlier. Forbidden abandons any past or modern pretense and makes thrash metal vital again by combining heaviness, speed, melody, and technicality into a marvelously accessible package.
Every cover is so irritatingly faithful to the original version it’s aping –right down to sounding overproduced- that it’s painful. But try as they might, none of the covering vocalists here appear to possess an nth of the swagger and soul that Mr. Coverdale conveyed in his prime (even if he did nick it from Robert Plant).
Ever been totally shocked by an album that you figured you had pegged on name recognition alone? It’s dangerous to make assumptions like that and the most recent proof of that fact is the coolest thing about Bring Me The Horizon’s third album.
I feel this band always had this kind of album in them and now have fully realized their potential in Nucleus: a glorious heavy metal album that should put a shit-eating grin on every metal head’s face.
Women And Children Last isn’t a good “metal” album, it could at least be seen as a decent hard rock or hair metal record.
While this is a pretty decent record in its own right, I’m somewhat saddened that Zoroaster has moved away from its own unique take on
southern sludge towards a sound that can be filed next to Farflung, The Atlas Moth, and countless other bands.
Hybrid Child is effervescent and fun, a mostly harmless romp through progressive rock territory. District 97’s edge can be found in the way vocalist Leslie Hunt carries the melodies and the staccato riffing that anchors most of the tracks—you can sorta tell that a drummer composed them.
Imagine, if you will – a raw distillation of the best of the Amphetamine Reptile catalogue in its heyday, veering past the outskirts of black metal territory, and fronted by Supergrover, if he had a severe antisocial personality disorder coupled with a propensity to sing through ground-down teeth, in phlegm-clearing snarls, growls and shrieks. Congratulations, you’ve just come close to conjuring up Oslo’s startlingly visionary Årabrot and the sound of their latest blood offering, Revenge.
Rather than being labeled a horrible listen, this album is simply unsatisfying. After listening to tracks from Malevolent’s previous studio release, Doomsday X, it seems that something is missing. Depth is absent, vocals lack vigor and there is nothing audibly fresh in terms of musicality
To reiterate, change the band’s name to something inoffensive and mediocre, to better reflect the music contained within, and I’d be more apt to give this a moderately higher mark. But to so thoroughly tarnish the memory of classic Tank with this half-assed schmaltz is inexcusable and pointless.