Yeah
This is um
yeah
cool
Volatile and Catharsis are big dumb and heavy like Bulldozer which isn't a huge crime, except I know that the band is capable of so much better. Catharsis (and numerous other songs) suffer from the idea that adding some "emotional" clean vocals adds any legitimate feeling or drama to a song but I don't really feel it. No build up or complexity, just basic heavy riffs that have been done better before, even in MH's previous shit nu-metal era.
I think I might like Beyond the Pale. It has its moments.
California Bleeding into Triple Beam is just a one-two punch of dumb. And Kaleidoscope isn't much better.
They're bad enough to almost make Bastards seem better just by changing things up but lets be real the country music with rage thing doesn't inspire anything positive either.
Okay 7 songs 32 mins and we still aren't at the halfway point. Joy. Worth noting that even though I grew to quite like it, the worst part of their last album was a complete inability to self edit, resulting in 20 mins of pointless material that contributed nothing. So they've doubled down on it here, and with far worse songs.
Hope Begets Hope. Bland. Filler. One of few that doesn't have an [EXPLICIT] tag in Spotify. Maybe it needs more swearing. That always makes metal songs sound tougher.
The biggest crime here isn't the nu metal stuff, but that even with constant style changes none of this is interesting. Big stupid riffs should at least be fun. This is not. Screaming at the Sun is more of the same.
Behind a Mask is attempting emotions again. I've liked these parts of previous MH songs (Darkness Within, on Locust, is a great example) but none of this seems to be working.
Heavy Lies the Crown has the potential to be actually good. Ambitious and dramatic and isn't about SMASHING THINGS and NOT GIVING A f**k, the only problem is some weird vocal choices in the midsection which lean too far towards something like Lordi or Gwar for my liking. But if I had to choose the best songs from the album this would be one of them.
We're at 54 mins and the last song winds down slowly... end of the album? Nope, still 20 mins to go! Time for some more rap metal and drop riffs! A song called Psychotic shouldn't be this boring. The slayer riff in the middle redeems it slightly. And then there's a gunshot sound effect. Dear oh dear. Why are these 1 riff songs 5 mins long?
Grind You Down. Annoying.
Razorblade Smile. Dumb.
Eulogy. Pointless.
The last 3 songs perfectly represent the album. Annoying, dumb, pointless.
