I'd like to start off by apologising for my previous reviews, I understand that they contain far too much descriptive content. I blame my attention to detail and my obsession for pointing out things I feel people might have missed. I intend to rein this habit in for this and future reviews. Expect them to be a lot shorter too."Mastodon" is the kind of band I like to avoid, this is not because of its genre, in fact metal and all sub-genres make up a huge percentage of my music collection. I avoid it because it is far to mainstream for me, I was looking forward to purchasing Sonisphere tickets until I read an article saying they are trying to get 14 of the biggest bands on stage. This immediately translated to 14 of the Worst bands on stage in my head.
The production on this album feels very natural, it doesn't feel like they've played around with the layers too much and turned it into a crazy guitar driven assault on my ears, I'm talking to you..."Lost Eden". Japanese Metalcore bands these days....
The Album opens strongly and I did enjoy the chorus to this song, it was catchy and the voice harmonised with it rather well. The next few tracks I felt were standard metal, and didn't do much to impress me. In fact on a first play through much of it passed me by without me feeling the need to look at what song was playing. I tried to concentrate on the marathon of a song, "The Czar" which has a progressive feel to it at the beginning. Although in the back of my head I had a feeling it was going to end up listening to the most cliché of all tracks on metal albums, the compulsory slow / acoustic song. Fortunately it was not and turned out to be a well thought out song that had "Tool" like begins but soon came into its own. The breakdown did annoy me a bit and the solo because I heard it all before.
In honesty that's the problem I have with this album, its nothing new, its not spectacular, its not breaking boundaries or making heads turn. It's trenched in well within the heart of metal. Not too extreme, not too easy listening.
My Highlights: Oblivion / The Czar
Score: 2/5
And what the hell is going on in that album cover!?
Aha. I swear you gave it a 3/5 yesterday.
ReplyDeleteYh, but I just realised its really not a 3.
ReplyDeleteMy rating system goes as follows:
1 - Really don't bother
2 - It didn't excite me and wasn't even that good
3 - I liked it, I would recommend it to a fan of that genre.
4 - Great album, will listen to for a long time. The gap between 3 and 4 is substantial.
5 - Perfect and will always have a place in my heart.