OVERKILL : Ironbound (2010)

OK! Now I can start slagging!! Right, here we go! .....
Sorry, no can do. Because "Ironbound" is the best Overkill album since "Taking Over". No shit. And these guys ARE definitely older than me! Way to go I guess. Any other really old thrash bands doing almost career best records at the moment? Mmmm...I'll let you internet idiots ponder that question for a year or two.

Peter Tägtgren. Two freaking words right there, that mean the difference between another goodish Overkill record, and Album of 2010 contender. In simple terms the production on "Ironbound" FUCKING SMOKES! Easily the best sound Overkill have ever had on record, fat, full, and crushing. I have no idea who these guitar players are now bashing for Blitz and DD, but they are doing hella good work. Same with faceless drummer. Overkill sound tight, groovy and committed as hell. And more importantly, more than they have for a very long time, Overkill sound CATCHY! Riffs I can get my teeth into, choruses that jump and kick, and a touch of that punk edge has returned good and proper. Shit, "Bring Me the Night" coulda come off the last 2 Zeke records.
"Give A Little" is as rocking and funny as "Use Your Head", maybe more so. In fact Side 1 is certainly the punky/groovy side, Side 2 gives us more crunchy thrashy stuff."Endless War" , "In Vain" and "Killing For a Living" are all worthy crunch fests. I prefer Side 1, but that's me.
"IB" really took me by surprise. I'd written Overkill off ages ago. I found them very generic and stale. "IB" turns all that on it's head. The band are back in truly slashing form.

FEAR FACTORY : Mechanize (2010)

I've almost always found this band completely irrelevant. Almost always. 'Cos Soul of a New Machine was pretty damn good and heavy all those years ago. Shit, how old are these guys now? Probably still younger than me. And then Strapping Young Lad came out with Heavy As a Really Heavy Thing and basically blew FF away artistically and sarcastically meaning that FF for me became irrelevant. And when all the kids started jumping on Demanufacture, well, that was it. See ya pricks. So what that means is I haven't listened to this band for a long time. I've read reviews, mostly all bad over the last few years. I remember seeing them live in a tiny Melbourne club and man I was just shocked at how BAD a vocalist Burton Bell was. Is. I mean he's OK on record, right? But without question the worst live vocalist I've ever seen, genre be damned. I admired the way he was mixing up the croaky and clean stuff on record, but you just had to be able to do at least some of it live. He couldn't. That just about did it for me and FF.
So that's where this review is coming from. I'm not much of a fan. So I must disappoint you all by not sticking my jackboots straight into the mouth of this bunch of mp3s by declaring "Mechanize".....not too bad. Sonically, it's pretty awesome. I think Rhys Fulber has produced it but don't quote me. It's real full, bassy, and together. Nice balance all round. I only listen to music through fair quality earbud type headphones these days and it sounds good. I imagine it'd do some damage on a nice pair of speakers. I checked out "Archetype" after reading how good that was supposed be and the production here slaughters it, simple as that.
What Mechanize is about is tightness and riffs. And lots and lots of thumping double kicking. They've still got that fucking atmospheric bullshit synth jumping in all over the place, but the guitars sound so damn good on this I'll give 'em a pass. Basically it's a pretty unrelenting attack of accessible but still damn heavy industrial metal riffage until track 8 "Designing the Enemy" drops back the pace for some downhome stlye synth atmospheric bullshit. Boring. "Final Exit" you would think, would end the LP on a heavy note....nope!! They go for at least two different big melodic choruses and some horrid Burton Bell "singing" on the verses. Yeah sure there's some riffage to be found, but I didn't have the patience to sit through this one for 8 min, including 3 minutes of extended synth ambience at the end. Idiots.
Gotta admit, pleasantly surprised, at least the first 7 tracks. Why they decided to steer the LP off into the other fucking direction at the end I wouldn't know. Couldn't help 'emselves I guess.
So I think I've chosen poorly here. I really wanted to slag the shit out of an LP to start my blog, and I thought I had a pretty good candidate in "Mechanize". Credit to FF, they've pulled a nice quick shifty one and released a pretty good record. It'll never make high rotation on my earbuds, but certainly I can't say I hated it.

Hello internet idiots.

This is my blog. It's going to contain a lot of bitching and moaning about heavy metal music. This bitching and moaning will hereby be known as a "review". These "reviews" may also be about movies, other blogs, forums, gigs or anything else I want. I may also write about anything else I feel like such as quality of toilet paper, life in Japan (where I live), alcoholic beverages and snacks, and getting old and crotchety.
I don't care if anybody reads my blog, and if you do I don't care what you think. You can post any kind of comment you want, but don't expect a reply. Still, you may get one if I'm in the mood. I suppose I'd better start with a couple of CD reviews.