Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Quick Hits

Quick reviews of what I've been listening to recently

Hed P.E. - Only in America
I had high expectations from these nu-metallers, but their latest album is one big let down, mostly due to the fact that they try too hard to be "gangsta cool" and curse way too much on almost every song that even I feel a bit embarrased to be listening to them rapping about wanting to rape your girl and such. The best parts are songs near the end where they don't curse and sound more genuine and not forced. A big dissapointment overall.
CD Rating: **

The 69 Eyes - Devils
Their 2004 album. I really dig the mix of Billy Idol style rock meets Type O Negative style goth that they do. Easy to listen to and nothing objectionable.
CD Rating: ****

Morningwood - Morningwood
Catchy techno-pop-rock with cutesy female vocals despite taking their name from what you call a boner when you wake up in the morning. You gotta admire their song writting skills to able to incorporate their band name into a catchy verse on the first single "The Nth Degree".
CD Rating: ***

Cryptopsy - Once Was Lost
Good old fashioned death metal, with all the machine gun bass drums, hyper speed riffs, inhuman vocals, and lyrics of the macaber and anti-religious you'd expect from the genre.
CD Rating: ***1/2

Monday, April 17, 2006

Cryptopsy - The Pestilance That Walketh in Darkness

A good death metal video that features the band jamming knee deep in a swamp and the singer preaching from a bible before going into his death metal growls. Cloaked figures emerge out of the darkness to receive "un-holy communion" in the form of worms, and the singer himself swallows one which is still wriggling in his mouth to show that they ain't using fakes!
Video ends with more growls and and a zoom out shot of the whole band and the singer with a twisted look on his face. It was simple, but still one of the better death metal videos I've seen in a while.
Video Rating: ****

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Hatebreed - To The Threshold

Now this was an interesting video from Hatebreed. Starts with a kid watching MTV's Headbanger's Ball, which is hosted by Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta, and as the video kicks off we see that the kid has an abusive dad who seems to be tormenting his mom and him.
Scattered throughout the scenes of the band jamming in a dark room, we see the psycho-dad bangin' down the kid's door and dragging his mom around. We get to an interesting bit where the dad drags them out to the car in the middle of public, and Jamey and the Hatebreed gang just happen to pass by and witness this act of cruelty.
The dad is all like "You got a problem?!", and Jamey gives him the evil eye as they walk off. A few scenes of the kid screaming and banging his TV is shown through out this, and Jamey on the TV seems to be able to hear the kid's cries. Cue to the dad bangin' down his kid's door again, but when he steps in we see a look of fear on his face and he backs off. Why? Hatebreed are in the kid's room to protect the kid and his mom! They all give him the evil eye as he backs away and the screen fades to end this rather cool video.
Video Rating: ****

Ill Nino - This is War

This is a really simple video that features the band jamming in front of a white backdrop in a warehouse studio setting. The song is ok as well, but I seriously think they could have done better, even on a limited budget.
Video Rating: *