Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape

Now it's almost my duty as a metal head to proclaim this to be a boiling piece of SHIT. However. I LIKE this shit. I'm not gonna bother giving a big explanation on who Foo Fighters are, as I'm sure you know, and if you don't, FIND OUT YOURSELF YOU LAZY FAGGOT. I believe this is one of their first albums, and it's not bad. At all. The album seems to appeal to the softer side of my music taste, a taste that is rarely apparent (I say as I browse through my Funeral For A Friend songs). Now this is the confusing part. For me to like a soft album, it would have to be pretty fucking depressing, otherwise it's a NO GO. However, this album is so fucking happy in places it makes me want to amputate myself with a rusty toothbrush covered in apricot jam. Yet I still like it?

I've always felt Dave Grohl as a vocalist that could definitely be involved in some metal, though so far he doesn't to of seemed to go near the stuff. Shame really. But I believe that Foo Fighters, in a sense, could be sort of like the soft music for metal heads. If your a metal head, and somehow start craving some soft music because you've turned into a wrist hating, fag loving, straight-hair obsessant little shit, then go listen to Foo Fighters (I'm not saying they're emos...just...yeah...). So I got the album, listened to it the whole way through, and I was very confused. The happiness. The sadness. THE NON-METALNESS. But, for a reason I still just CAN'T explain, I like it. It's like morning wood, you have it, but you just can't explain why. Or, maybe you can. Whatever. Well the album contains a massive 18 songs (still got nothing on Katatonia), with only 2 songs being hit songs. Them being “Monkey Wrench” and “Everlong”, which can be a bit depressing, but the songs in between are basically just interludes, letting your mind wander (about why your listening to this(SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)) before the next hit starts.

So I'm still confused about why I like this. But then again, I'm also confused as to why I like metal. Oh. Wait. Because it's awesome? I can't really give advise on buying this...you would have to have some weird life-changing moment or something to ACTUALLY BUY IT. So really, I've just wasted your time, and made you look at my Foo Fighter rant. Well done.

I apologize for the pussy review, I just came across it and thought “WHY THE SHIT NOT?!”. I'll do some brutal death metal or something next time.

Guns 'N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

It's shit.

The Haunted - The Dead Eye

The Swedish Melodic Death Metal / Thrash band “The Haunted” started from the drummer, bassist and guitarist of At The Gates, the legendary band that started Melodic Death Metal (shame they were crap), when they wanted to approach a more thrash metal approach to their music. They've made a few albums before this one, which I've listened to every now and again and not been overly keen on them. However, this album is somewhat different (in other words, it's good)

Despite them aiming for more of a Thrash Metal style...they've managed to somehow end up going back to Melodic Death Metal in this album. Well...only slightly I suppose, it still remains quite thrash rooted (NO I WILL NOT MAKE A SEPULTURA PUN). One thing you will notice about this album is that they've started everything with “The”. The band name. The album name. EVER SINGLE SONG TITLE. Probably caused by some weird Swedish word fetish or something. Besides that slight annoyance, it's a pretty good album. The riffs aren't fantastic I have to admit, however, that doesn't stop the songs from being amazing. The vocals are very unique and use a good mix of aggressive harsh vocals to quite sinister clean vocals. The songs are quite diverse, going from being quite fast and thrash like, to being slow, melodic, and acoustic guitars get occasionally involved during some of the calmest moments of the album.(Don't worry, the acoustic guitar bits don't sound really gay as you may predict).

Is this album worth buying? I would say yes, especially if you're quite into Swedish thrash or melodic death metal, however, as it is quite unique, your better off checking it out first. I don't know anyone else who's listened to this album, so I may well be the only person on earth that likes it, but hopefully my judgement isn't too bad...otherwise all this reviewing stuff seems a bit ironic.

Turisas - Battle Metal

Once again, I know my fellow critics of this site will be less than pleased that I have but mentioned this band/album, but it has managed to get itself a large listening time from me, and as such feel I should review it as Turisas have made themselves popular within the last year or two, and I am meant to be the one that reviews less obscure bands.

Turisas, I believe, mark what viking metal is ALL about. They are new, and so are not one of the classic bands but somehow manage to define their own genre in a way similar to Maiden defining Heavy Metal and Metallica defining Thrash. Their musical style and lyrics both reflect this, by using violins, pipes and trumpets to give the Norse feel to their songs whilst singing about death in battle and the afterlife. Not that it has much to do with listening to the album, but they also dress up as blood-spattered warriors when on stage, which does look pretty cool.

I reckon their defining songs on this album would be 'Battle Metal' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' (no, not the hymn moron). They both use classic Norse folk styles and almost make you want to rape and pillage your neighbours for shits and giggles. I found Rex Regi Rebellis and its prologue could only be described as weird, and though it seemed kinda epic and adding to the glory and death theme it verged on being funny, but not in the good way. Sahti-Waari deserves credit, as although it is entirely in some Scandinavian language it does show that they know of their ancestry and of the viking culture, and are not just some piss-take band.

Whether this album is really worth your money is debatable. What isn't debatable is that viking metal is very much an aquired taste, one that does not suit the other two reviewers of this site. Buying the album is one thing, however, as I would undoubtedly pay to see them live. In all fairness, you can hardly hate a band too much with lyrics like this...

'With full power we smashed into their lines,
The ground shook, swords tasted their flesh,
Hooves trampling over men screaming for their lives,
The battle raged until both troops were thrashed.'

... can you?

Lamb of God - Sacrament

I'm going to start with a short rant, and short I shall keep it. I am sick and tired of 'SUPR HXC METAL FAN 4LYF' dicks saying that a band/album is shit because it is 'not heavy enough' (oh fuck off) or because it got the front cover of Kerrang magazine (do you realise how many exceptions to that there are). So yeah, Lamb of God HAVE been in Kerrang but DAMN IT THEY ARE STILL GOOD. Ok.

Lamb of God smashed their way to popularity last year with Sacrament, breaking out from being a death metal band of an aquired taste to a widely known Groove/Thrash band and winning a few Golden God awards while they were at it. At this point, I was not into any kind of heavy stuff, Maiden were my drugs and I was so much of a newfag as to think Dragonforce were actually good. Although I did have respect for this type of stuff, I just couldn't get into the whole screaming deal. But my good fellow Baxter managed to get me to try this band out after a flurry of 'ok seriously dude Lamb of God are amazing listen to Sacrament they're amazing listen to it they rule seriously listen to it dude just listen to it they're amazing'. Well I sure have no regrets now.

Riffs, pig squeals, the best drumming ever and serious hell raising effectively describes this album. It is without a doubt one of the best things I could imagine moshing to at a gig, and indeed when I did see them they made a fantastic performance out of 'Walk With Me In Hell' and 'Redneck', the two singles of the album. If the air-raid like drumming patterns don't bring you to your metaphorical knees, then undoubtedly the crazy inward screams will, not to mention the guitar solos (in particular 'Walk With Me In Hell'). My personal favourite of the album is 'More Time To Kill' which, despite being horribly underrated and ignored by many, combines kick ass lyrics and awesome rhythm with a quite frankly beautiful melodic section, then at the end combining the two to make what I believe to be the most epic piece of music that Lamb have made so far since 'Laid to Rest'. Nonetheless, songs like 'Redneck' bring out the groovey side to Lamb of God's new style, yet at the same time 'Pathetic' and 'Foot to the Throat' re-vitalise their older songs which brought them to where they are.

All in all, this IS undoubtedly one of the best metal albums, worthy of the list no doubt. It brought hope to new bands retaining the awesomeness of the last 20 years, and throwing a masterpiece of metal to the public to mosh their faces off to.