Sure, there are still movie dialogue samples, and keyboards on a couple of tracks, but the techno-metal sound he beat into the ground for a decade is almost totally gone.
It's his most stripped-down, hard-rock album since White Zombie's Make Them Die Slowly. It's shockingly good, and I say that as someone who put Educated Horses in my Top 100 of the decade. Heard the new Rob Zombie album last night too.
I saw Exodus in 1990 and didn't care to see them again, and the prospect of watching Arch Enemy deliver an ultra-slick, totally efficient and professional 70 minutes of melodic death metal for the fourth time (I saw them in 2003, 20) just didn't get my blood pumping. So even with all of that, their set was really good, and the crowd dug them. But they must have been getting a good monitor mix, because they didn't make any mention of it. The guitars were ridiculously quiet, the bass was inaudible, the background vocals were louder than Malone's vocals, the snare and bass drums sounded like typewriter keys, while the toms were thunderous. They were kissing the audience's ass in a big way - "This next song is on our MySpace page, so check it out when you get home!" "We're gonna be at the merch table all night after our set!" - and it seemed to work they got a good round of applause despite going on at 7:30.Īrsis' new songs are like a cross between Arch Enemy and early Metallica their tech-death back catalog stuff didn't fit that comfortably alongside stuff from the new album and We Are The Nightmare, and they only had a half hour anyway, so they didn't do much Willowtip-era material, but they did close with a ferocious version of "The Face of My Innocence." The problem was, their sound was all fucked up their intro tape was louder than their actual set. Mutiny Within were pretty good power metal w/occasional DM vocals, somewhere between Trivium and DragonForce. Did anyone else ever get around to listening to this? I haven't checked the best of 2009 threads, but this should definitely be on there. J0hn is way better at explaining the appeal of this than I am, so if you missed his posts on this, click my link to his post. and then the rhythm guitar playing - maybe I'm high but some of the chord progressions almost remind me of stuff George Lynch might come up with if he were in a black/death band. I love the way the vocals sound: blackened with a touch of reverb and delay on them. The drummer is great, I will never get sick of slow tempo double-kick style playing, and the kettle drum things, though overbearing at times, really add a lot of atmosphere and uniqueness to their sound.
it struck me on the train this morning that you could actually dance to a lot of the songs on this album - I don't mean manic mosh pit stuff, but like some kind of actual dance, maybe around a big fire or something.
The first song is flat out amazing - I almost wish it would go on for another minute or two at the end instead of fading out so quickly. It took a few listens for this album to really sink in, but now that it has, I can't seem to listen to anything else. Thanks for another great recommendation, dude. Hey, i finally got around to falling in love with the Avenger album, Feast of Anger, Joy of Despair which J0hn liveblogged on the 2009 thread.