The Bullet

The third studio release from french metal band Benighted is a good album. Not flawless, but still a solid album to say the least. The music is Death Metal (some say Deathcore or Grindcore), but it seems a tad more accesible than most death metal. I've played snipits of the album to people who don't usually listen to extreme metal, and their reaction isn't "Oh, whatever, death metal, tisk tisk.", it's "Cool". Don't mistake this for the album being watered down, it's all but that.

The album opens up with Bestial Breeding, which is probably the worst song on the album, but not terrible. I give it a B- or a C. The next couple of tracks, "Stay Brutal" and "Foetus" are good, but not mind-blowing. I give them a B. Then comes Deviant, which, with it's mad guitar shredding and soloing (by Olivier Gabriel and Liem N'Guyen), is my favorite song of the fist six songs on the twelve tracker (atleast a B+). Listen to the first half-minute and you will listen to the rest of the album without much hesitation.

The drums arn't too shabby either, on this, or any of the tracks for that matter. Fred Fayolle (the band's then drummer) is one of the most tallented drummers I have heard.

Also, Julien Truchand is a pretty good growler. He has miltiple voices (of course, including the Death Metal growl and the high breathy screech) and pronounces the lyrics clearer than many in the genre. He can't go as low as say, Frank Mullen, but he's not about going low, he's about going with the awesomeness.

The next two tracks, "Puerperal Cannibalism" and "Self Proclaimed God" arn't as good as Deciant but are better than the first three tracks.

Starting with the next track "Dementia", are tracks that make you feel emotions aside from angry (mostly desperastion), and in Death Metal. This is especially at the end of "Phlebotomized", which is one of the highlights of the album. This entire side is atleast as good as Deviant with maybe a couple execptions. The album ends with "Running Man" (on some additions), which is only 1:47, but an awesome song for it's length, and one that feels like a conclusion to the album (for an overall song, B at the lowest, probably B+, for a short song that was mostly made to feel like the closer, A).

overall album rating: (B at lowest, probably B+)

Highlights: Deviant, Phlebotomized