Death Metal Album Club

~~MicShazam~~ · 10-17-2017, 02:48 PM

I know this band, but I'm not familiar with this album in particular. I own an album of theirs named Forbidden Anger and I even think it's quite good. It has a bit more of a melodeath vibe to it than this album does, I'd say.

Having listened a couple times to The Mean Hour, I'd say I'm a bit disappointed. It's just not quite as well composed as I'd like, and some of the vocal style detours just don't really work here. I really enjoy the first four tracks, so that's something. There's some good moments later on the album too, but it doesn't grab me like Forbidden Anger does.
It seems there's too much staccato chugging here and not all that many interesting ideas to go around for the length of the album.
I enjoy the vocals of the regular vocalist, but there's a song somewhere into the album where this dude comes in and... kind of ruins the moment.
I like the production on the album. It recalls 90's metal albums to me. Something I really enjoyed about that time was that there didn't seem to be some reigning trend in metal production/mastering during that decade, so each album from every band sounded damn near unique.
A lot of 90's metal also has way fatter bass than all those usually quite thin 80's metal albums, and this particular album can boast that too. There's some pretty sweet grooving between the guitars and bass at times here. The drummer needs to learn some more tricks. The drumming is tighter than on the album I own, but also less varied. Not an improvement and he's the weak link here, even if the drums work really well on each track in isolation from the whole.

I'm not ging to be as hard on this as other posters understandably are. I've got a soft spot for this band already and sort of enjoy their sound.

6/10. Forbidden Anger is way better, but I doubt I'll convince anyone to listen to it.

EDIT: I hate the fact that Die Alone would have been pretty sweet if not for that ****ty vocal feature during the chorus.

10-17-2017, 02:48 PM	#1 (permalink)
~~MicShazam~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Aalborg Posts: 7,634	I know this band, but I'm not familiar with this album in particular. I own an album of theirs named Forbidden Anger and I even think it's quite good. It has a bit more of a melodeath vibe to it than this album does, I'd say. Having listened a couple times to The Mean Hour, I'd say I'm a bit disappointed. It's just not quite as well composed as I'd like, and some of the vocal style detours just don't really work here. I really enjoy the first four tracks, so that's something. There's some good moments later on the album too, but it doesn't grab me like Forbidden Anger does. It seems there's too much staccato chugging here and not all that many interesting ideas to go around for the length of the album. I enjoy the vocals of the regular vocalist, but there's a song somewhere into the album where this dude comes in and... kind of ruins the moment. I like the production on the album. It recalls 90's metal albums to me. Something I really enjoyed about that time was that there didn't seem to be some reigning trend in metal production/mastering during that decade, so each album from every band sounded damn near unique. A lot of 90's metal also has way fatter bass than all those usually quite thin 80's metal albums, and this particular album can boast that too. There's some pretty sweet grooving between the guitars and bass at times here. The drummer needs to learn some more tricks. The drumming is tighter than on the album I own, but also less varied. Not an improvement and he's the weak link here, even if the drums work really well on each track in isolation from the whole. I'm not ging to be as hard on this as other posters understandably are. I've got a soft spot for this band already and sort of enjoy their sound. 6/10. Forbidden Anger is way better, but I doubt I'll convince anyone to listen to it. EDIT: I hate the fact that Die Alone would have been pretty sweet if not for that ****ty vocal feature during the chorus.