Angry Metal Guy

So, there’s been a lot of stink on this website (and other websites) about reviews that I write where I give a band a bad score. One of the most fascinating responses that I get is the one where people tell me that I am “not objective.” As an Angry Metal Guy who feels very strongly about how much I want to blow up the entire concept of postmodernism, I hate to say this because it’s a very postmodern claim, but let’s revisit an old cliché, shall we? “Art is in the eye of the beholder.” Continue reading

Amaranthe // Amaranthe
Rating: 0.5/5.0 — Slick, Catchy, Soulless.
Label: Spinefarm
Websites: myspace.com/amaranthemetal
Release Dates: EU: 2011.04.13 | US: 04.19.2011

Amaranthe has three vocalists. Just let that sink in for a while. From what I can tell, not one of those vocalists plays an instrument. Instead, they found three “attractive” people to do vocals for them. The first is a woman, who sounds like a pop singer (think E Type) and who I guarantee you cannot name a Slayer record. The second is a screamy dude. He’s got a beard (’cause he’s tough and angsty, you see) and he screams, but not too much (he must be very, very, very bored on stage). And then there’s the ‘power metal’ vocalist (Berg from Dream Evil) who’s just as over-produced as the chick vocalist and is there to get 14 year old girls all silly over his perfectly groomed dreadlocks. Behind them are several soulless session musicians (from Mercenary, Dragonland and Engel). Though, frankly, this is a band that is functionally made of session musicians, since integrity seems to be lacking. Continue reading

Deadlock // Bizarro World
Rating: 1.0/5.0 — It’s a bizarro world where anyone likes this
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: xdeadlockx.com | Stream at Metal Hammer
Release Dates: EU: 2011.02.28 | US: 03.15.2011

Heavy metal was once the most popular music in the world. Sure, it was glam rock, but bands that were genuinely cool were doing really well even if they weren’t getting radio play. Think about the success of Metallica pre-black album, or Iron Maiden selling out the Long Beach Arena 4 nights running on the tour for Powerslave. The music was technical, but it was still accessible and the mass appeal was still synonymous with good bands. But since the 1980s the quality of pop music has declined dramatically, and popular rock with it. We have now landed in a bizarro world, where bad, fundamentally not very catchy or interesting bands that lack all content are popular, and where innovators and interesting bands have trouble getting any recognition. But there’s an even more terrible place, and that’s the ill-advised attempts of people to try to blend these two things. No good can come of this. Continue reading

In This Moment // A Star-Crossed Wasteland
Rating: 1.0/5.0 — Every time you play this record a Metal God dies…
Label: Century Media
Websites: myspace.com/inthismoment
Release Dates: EU: 12.07.2010 | US: 07.13.2010

So I admit, I’ve never heard SoCal pop rockers In This Moment before. This review will be completely devoid of comparisons to their last two records. Nor will it be filled with witty insights into how the band has changed over their time and whether or not this is a darker record (of course, every new record is the darkest, heaviest, etc., that any band has ever done, so trust the bio about as far as you can throw Arnold Schwarzneger). No, this is going to pretty much be a tirade about how much I really don’t like this album at all or the style of music or basically anything about this at all except for Maria’s clean singing voice, which is very good. You are warned. Don’t throw a fit in the comments because I hate your favorite band: I’ve already warned you. If you read past the jump then it’s your own fucking fault. Continue reading

Soilwork // The Panic Broadcast
Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Commercial as hell…
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US)
Website: soilwork.org | myspace.com/soilwork
Release Dates: EU: 02.07.2010 | US: 07.13.2010

Wow. So, it’s been like 10 years since I’ve listened to Soilwork and it turns out that they don’t sound at all even remotely the same. Sometimes a band falls off your radar and you don’t even think about them at all and honestly, Soilwork is one such band. Now, it’s probably not a surprise to anyone else but I was in utter shock when I turned on The Panic Broadcast to discover that the Gothenburg sound had totally been replaced by eurocore! See, now you’re laughing at my ignorance, but I’m a bit surprised. See, in Angry Metal World™ the last record that Soilwork released was actually The Chainheart Machine in 2000. And back then, these guys were playing a not-entirely-novel, but very, very good version of the Gothenburg sound. Turns out in the much lamer real world Soilwork has had a bunch of records and gotten a new vocal style, a new sound and hyper-produced. Continue reading

Menemic // Sons of the System
Rating: 2.0/5.0 – Blasé, cliché and just generally mediocre
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US)
Website: myspace.com/mnemic | mnemic.com
Release Dates: EU: 15.01.2010 | US: 01.26.2010

Mnemic has been around in the æther for a while but I’ve never given them a proper listen until now. The band has good promo, they’ve toured Europe twice with metal giants (like ‘em or not) Metallica, they look like real metal dudes and they’ve got cred because a couple people I know compared them to Meshuggah back when they first came out. Unfortunately, Sons of the System sounds a lot less like Meshuggah and a lot more like Sonic Syndicate. This record is another convergence point for things that I’m not really keen on in the world of metal and I’ll give you a short run-down.

At its base Mnemic is a groovecore band. The riffs are meant to be groovy, the drums tight and heavy and the atmosphere built to move your body to. Now and again they pull that off, but I think they’ve got a couple of things working against them on this front. First, groovecore sounds more and more like metalcore in my ears every time I listen to it because the production values are leaning more in the direction of triggered drums, “soaring vocal” choruses a la Killswitch Engage and a glut of predictable and uninteresting breakdowns. While expertly executed and smoothly produced, Sons of the System follows this formula off the cliff. The soaring vocals are completely forgettable, the chuggy parts feel thin and very rarely is there a groove that makes me want to do anything other than listen to something else.

This is not to say that there is nothing good going on here, but it’s few and far between. The track “Fate” has its moments, for example, and there are a couple of melodies early on that caught my ear  (the intro to “The Erasing” is a great example of this) but they never moved me to anything more than a “huh.” To top it off, the disc just gets pretty repetitive. Since the band isn’t doing anything very interesting melodically throughout the whole 55 minutes of this disc, the tracks all blend into eachother, with each chorus mimicing the choruses before and after it and the riffs repeating ad nauseum. The advertised “progressiveness” that has been flaunted in reference to this new record is few and far between (I count about 3 places where the record moves into something beyond standard groove riffs) and mainly it just sounds like Meshuggah rip-off rather than something new and interesting.

There is a sound that is forming with these groovecore/metalcore bands that are coming from Europe that I’m thinking about dubbing with the very down-my-nose kind of expression: Eurocore. Sonic Syndicate sounds pretty much like this as well, with production values that bore and fail to impress, groovy riffs that are everything you’ve ever heard before and a formula that, in general, disappoints because of its predictability and lack of originality. I guess I understand that there’s pressure on these bands to try to be as commercial as possible in order to stay in the limelight, but then again.. I can’t think of anyone I know who actually likes music that sounds like this.

Sonic Syndicate // Rebellion EP
Rating: 1.0/5.0 – This is everything that is wrong with modern metal
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US)
Websites: sonicsyndicate.com | myspace.com/sonicsyndicate
Release Date: Nov. 6th, 2009

Sonic Syndicate are a pop rock band that somehow got signed to Nuclear Blast. Apparently they’re from Sweden, but I wonder if other metal guys from this country would actually agree to that. I think many of them would say “Well, don’t they have an English singer?” Why yes, they do! He’s new, in fact!

The rundown is simple. Sonic Syndicate is poppy metalcore. Do not let their Wikipedia page fool you. Sonic Syndicate are not melodic death metal. There is nothing remotely death metal about this EP or this band. “Burn This City,” sounds like the theme song from a bad action flick, and the new vocalist sounds like the guy from Killswitch Engage. While “Rebellion in Nightmareland” is a little bit better than the title track, it too is far too formulaic to stand. Oh, he sounds like the dude from KSE on this track, too.

In fact, the only thing that I can say good about this band is that they’re all very pretty. So pretty, in fact, that one wonders when they found time to write this music between all the primping and preening they must do every day. When the fuck did becoming a metal dude mean becoming a goddamn hair model? Other than that, this is an example of everything that is wrong with modern metal. The production is so mechanical that it is totally soulless. The keyboards are high and unnecessary, the drums are fake and lifeless. The vocals are standard metalcore vocals, some screaming lots of 2nd tenor whining about girls.

This whole EP clocks in at 11 minutes long. Oh, and let me tell you something. There’s a 1 second difference between the “Radio Cut” and the normal version of “Burn This City.” I’ve listened to this whole thing several times and I can’t tell the difference. So in reality, the new material on this EP clocks in at about 7 minutes. And that’s 7 minutes you’ll never get back.