As I may have hinted over the course of the last year some of the things present in the metal genre have been less than stellar; some times I swear I listen to things just to have an informed opinion of why I dislike it, when in reality it would be a far better use of time and fair better for the blood pressure to not bother listening and let it go.
However, I feel if I didn't I would be stuck at a gig or at a party with someone who says to me 'let's go watch Bring Me The Horizon/Parkway Drive' and the next moment I have weighed in fifty quid and I am standing in a room wondering why I am being raped in the ear by a bunch of douchebags who spent more time on their hair than they did on crafting anything resembling a good song.
Yes people, I do it for you.
And as I can't pretend I am okay with it, I do it in a way that will never get me employed as a writer for any music magazine, so why should I stop now?
Without further ado the The Bad of 2012...
10. God Forbid/Ill Nino 'Equilibrium'/'
It has to be a bonus tie at number 10.
Why? Well simply from my perspective because both of these bands used to be so damn good that I loved them. A lot.
Ill Nino's Revolution Revolucion and One Nation Army were awesome examples of Latin flavoured Nu Metal that made a lot of other releases post Millennial look and sound shit and as I wrote the other month God Forbid's Gone Forever and Constitution Of Treason were blinding examples of some of the best the Metalcore genre had to offer. However both bands have stumbled on since these releases becoming increasingly irrelevant - first trying to chase the big bucks and then reverting to their roots to try and keep the fans they had.
This year they both released records that I had actually forgotten about until I checked the list of albums released.
Albums so nondescript, they may as well have not released anything.
I'm not kidding - Nonpoint isn't anywhere because they weren't quite good enough to make the top ten best of, Papa Roach weren't in the bad or the ugly list with Connection, because they were just themselves - these are in this top ten now because they are so lame and uninspiring I could have probably sat in silence for two hours and had more musical stimulation.
Both have released amazing albums before, but these are so bland and forgettable the best thing I can say about them is they didn't send me into a fit of rage like some of the others on this list.
Why? Why? Why?
So utterly pointless it is the equivalent of a hermit trying to spice up his sex life with a danger wank.
I'd say avoid, but even if you didn't you probably wouldn't remember bothering.
9. Spineshank 'Anger. Denial. Acceptance.'
Sadly unlike the above two, I remember this one. Much in the same vein Spineshank released the incredible 'Height Of Callousness' and the slightly more accessible and Grammy winning 'Self Destructive Pattern'. Both these albums I still play to this day. Johnny Santos has a great voice despite looking like a Goblin from Lord of the Rings and the band created some bruising but effective music to accompany it. Raised by Dino Cazares in a test tube and released on the world as a baby Fear Factory they evolved into a decent band until years of being stuck on a bus with each other took it's toll and they split.
Like every other fucker in recent years they decided to reform and this year added a new album to their back catalogue.
And it is, unlike Ill Nino's Enigma or Dead World or 45 minutes of my life wasted or what have you, very memorable.
Memorable for the fact that Spineshank were a well honed machine. A precision cut tool. Now they are just a poor shadow of themselves. From the lack of Roadrunner funded production, to the ring rust of all the performers, to the clumsy attempts to replicate themselves Anger. Denial. Acceptance. is almost an appropriate chart of my reactions - No they are not that shit now! Oh my God I can't believe they have ruined their own legacy. Okay, this is shit, I'll listen to their old stuff and ignore this album.
8. Speaking of Fear Factory. 'The Industrialist'
What the fuck is going on with the once great industrial pioneers?
Having kissed and made up with Dino. Burton and the Fat Mexican booted out Christian Olde Wolbers and Raymond 'the human drum machine' Harrera for Strapping Young Lads thunderbroom and tub thumping merchants for the release of 'Mechanise'. Those who cared (bar me it seems) thought this was a great comeback album despite not buying it and it set the scene for this years next instalment of the continuation of Man vs Machine concept albums released by a band who have absolutely, in no way shape or form painted themselves into a thematic corner.
This years take on a story that was old before they made Terminator 3, was, well more of the same. Only no one outside of Burton and Dino seem to know who is in Fear Factory anymore but it's not Gene Hoglan as he's gone to play for Testament.
Picture the scene, spooky mechanical samples, digital sounding drums, thrashing riffs, a guttural roar, a rushed sounding clean chorus.
Yep sure as the Terminator keeps coming back, a paler copy of itself, so do Fear Factory, carrying on for the sake of carrying on, no new ideas, no skilled execution, no friggin imagination.
This release is as cold and dead as the heart of the machine.
7. Adrenaline Mob 'Omerta'
Who? Yeah I know...
Remember Mike Portnoy? Skin beater and founding member member of Dream Theater who decided he wanted to put his band of 25 years on hold so he could join Avenged Sevenfold? Only AX7 didn't want him to join and Dream Theater decided they wanted to carry on, preferably without the asshole who essentially tried to write off their day jobs?
Well if you aren't familiar with that tail of hubris you spend less time reading about Metal than I do.
Which is probably a forgone conclusion at this stage.
So anyway, old Portnoy needs a new gig and hey preseto, Disturbed go on hiatus.
The guitarist from Disturbed comes out and states they are taking a break from the band and he is going to get his rocks off doing Adrenaline Mob.
Who sound like a watered down, middle of the road Disturbed, only with a slightly more famous drummer.
Yes that's right a more average Disturbed.
In fact, that's harsh. Adrenaline Mob's debut made me long for 'Paint My Bottom Blue And Call Me Shirley, Woo, I'm Fucking Nuts, Me' Mad Davy Draiman from Disturbed.
That bad.
I'm sure there is a crack in the ass of America that needs to be filled by sub Nickelback, sub Disturbed rock - the kind of place where Godsmack and Creed are hailed as musical nirvana, but really? Dream Theater must be pissing themselves laughing from behind their pointy prog rock guitars.
6. Lacuna Coil 'Dark Adrenaline'
I'll open this by saying that no matter what Christina Scabbia is still hands down a babe. A total babe.
But before I get too Wayne's World on you, the new Lacuna Coil album is awful.
I felt (not unjustly) that the previous effort Shallow Life crossed the proverbial Rubicon into terrible, jangly, pop metal and now here on their latest release they promised they would get 'darker and heavier' again. The resultant mess is that the band flops around like a proverbial ragdoll caught between trying to regain some credibility with their old fans and keeping one eye on the commercial aspect of their career trajectories.
Sure it's heavier, but Andrea Ferro's male vocals sound watered down, Scabbia sounds like she is trying to emulate Sharon whatserface from Within Temptation and it sounds forced.
It's like the band went to America on the back of Comalies and got caught up with all the hype surrounding Evanescence and decided that despite existing for longer, being one of the biggest selling artists on Century Media (at the time), being better and more credible, they had to dumb themselves down to appeal to the American market.
I listened to this entire album with a pained expression on my face. And it's 18 fucking songs long… 18 songs!?! Who the hell needs to release an album that long? What's worse is one of the songs is a cover of R.E.M's 'Losing My Religion' a song synonymous with the band that wrote it. So why cover it? It was bad enough when they covered Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy The Silence', but thankfully that one was shorter.
Candlelight reportedly tried to sue illegal downloaders of this album earlier this year, well fuck that, they should have sued Candlelight for allowing this to come out.
5. Soundgarden 'King Animal'
I went into this the other week so I won't hammer the point home again.
I think people so desperately want quality bands that personally I believe it is a case of mass hysteria in some cases. So here is a story about mass hysteria instead:
A penis panic is a mass hysteria event or panic in which male members of a population suddenly experience the belief that their genitals are getting smaller or disappearing entirely. Penis panics have occurred around the world, most notably in Africa and Asia. Local beliefs in many instances assert that such physical changes are often fatal. In cases where the fear of the penis being retracted is secondary to other conditions, psychological diagnosis and treatments are under development. It is becoming increasingly clear that these forms of mass hysteria are more common than previously thought. Injuries have occurred when stricken men have resorted to apparatus such as needles, hooks, fishing line, and shoe strings, to prevent the disappearance of their penises. An epidemic struck Singapore in 1967, resulting in thousands of reported cases. Government and medical officials alleviated the outbreak only by a massive campaign to reassure men of the anatomical impossibility of retraction together with a media blackout on the spread of the condition.
4. Serj Tankian 'Harakiri'
System of a Down always had the ability to divide people's opinion.
Myself, I didn't like the first album when it came out. It wasn't until years later I went back and listened to it and it grew on me. I still don't dust it off that often now. However for one glorious moment the stars aligned for SOAD and Toxicity was fucking huge. Admittedly there was a large portion of Post 9/11 confusion in there and coincidentally timed lyrics. Plus the racist element of America immediately seized on the beards and skin colour and the slightly Anti-American stance and said 'terrorist'. Then there's the fact that Serj sounded like a goat despite being one of the finest vocalists around at the time.
After that there was the stop gap third album, the slightly contrived double album, the tales of drugs, internal fighting and the hiatus, Scars On Broadway and Serj's solo career and the 'will they? won't they?' reunion.
Why am I bringing this up now?
Because it's interesting. Unlike Serj's solo career.
System were always more than the sum of their parts - Darren Malarkian complemented Serj well before he got his John Lennon complex and their vocal interplay was great. The guys backing them were superb musicians.
Alone Serj is just uninteresting… he always seemed to balance out the crazy Malarkian moments, the ying to the crazy yang, the soaring voice next to the insane chatter, here apart from 30 seconds which sounds like Chop Suey I hated it for it's stark reminder of what the world is actually missing.
3. Hellyeah 'Band Of Brothers'
I'm not sure how I can adequately express my feelings about Hellyeah.
I loved Pantera, I like(d) Mudvayne (although their last few releases have been iffy to say the least and Nothingface were pretty damn good too and no one can deny that it is good to have Big Vin back behind a drum kit. Frankly the guy was probably rich enough to never have to do it after the sadly missed Pantera and the not at all bad Damageplan; the guy was probably entitled to never step on stage again after the horrific events of 2004, not to mention extremely lucky to be alive.
Hellyeah was born somehow and the first album is good, the second one less so and the latest one…
I think the best word I can describe it as is charmless. Utterly charmless. The music is lumpen and the lyrics hamfisted. It is a wonder how much milage they can get out of they 'Oooo we're Cowboy Rock n Roll Outlaws' vibe.
Especially when 3/4 of them aren't Cowboys from Texas, or even Hell(yeah).
I get the feeling the remaining band members are probably looking at each other and grinning because they are sharing a stage with one of their heroes. It's a rare thing a drummer evolves into a great song writer (Dave Grohl being the exception) and here just proves that. The first album was kinda fun, the second the material a little thinner and on this release it feels like a collection of noise for noise sake.
2. Steve Harris 'British Lion'
I was going to give this slot to Linkin Park's 'Living Things' but frankly they are not even remotely Metal anymore so the whole review would be a creative rehash of the following bile, Chester Bennington's Whiny voice, Mike 'Windmill Arms' Shinoda's wannaJay-Z impression, Go-Bots, universally bland shite.
So British Lion heroically steps into it's spot. Those of you familiar with me will know that Steve Harris is pretty much my musical hero. Having formed Iron Maiden on Xmas Day 1976, 'Arry Arris has ploughed the long road to global success by steering the Irons his way, and his way it has been - axing of countless band members including the original voice Paul Di'Anno, either you are with Harris or you are protected by Rod Smallwood because he knows you are the best pure Metal vocalist going.
And here's the rub with British Lion; apparently they were a band who Arry tried to take under his wing about a billion years ago, but like Dirty Deeds, Lauren 'Hot, but not musically talented' Harris, and a host of other bands he has been involved with, they aren't very good.
I spoke about Adrian's album on the Ugly list… that tried to be different, to push boundaries, step outside the box yadda, yadda, yadda. This, however is dated, bang average pub rock. Having been working on this since 1996 apparently (which was when Dickinson released the forward thinking Skunkworks album) this has taken Chinese Democracy levels of time to produce (admittedly Harris has been slightly busy in between) and the result is a resounding 'Meh'.
Unable to release under British Lion, this became a Steve Harris album and in truth it is a band collaboration, but there is little to suggest the muscular gallop of Iron Maiden in the soft rock conjured up by the band.
The crowning glory though is the singer. Harris' choice to replace Dickinson with Blaze Bayley was a poor one, his reluctance to face facts and get the Air Raid Siren back was a worse one. This guy… well, he is just awful.
Weak voiced, he just sounds strained all the way through on British Lion's awkwardly average fare.
Pains me to say it but if it hadn't had the words 'Steve Harris' on it, I would have never looked twice.
1. All That Remains 'A War You Cannot Win'
How the mighty have fallen.
I suppose it is comforting in this day and age to know that ATR have a seeming legion of loyal fans.
I am not one of them.
Let me make it clear I have only followed Phil Labonte since Shadows Fall, I have only purchased all their albums until this one, so when I get lectured online by people accusing me of being a 'fair weathered fan' my only response is one of complete mockery.
After This Darkened Heart and The Fall of Ideals, Overcome was a challenging album for all with it's desperate pop inflected tunes, it was also when the rise of Autotune started. For We Are Many was better, but no less tweaked.
This new piece of shit may as well have been put together by the lame pop rock loving cousin of the machine that is now putting together Fear Factory albums.
If any ATR fans find this review and are butt hurt about it and want to come whining and crying on the comments section about 'bands change and need to progress' then let me ask you this:
Is it progression to dumb down your sound to a level of complete predictability?
Is it progression to make your album in a studio rather than be able to reproduce it organically?
Do you like Nickelback?
Cos I fucking don't and that's what it sounds like now at times, and the fact they have scored a tour with Hinder is proof of this descent into the Seventh Circle of Middle Of The Road Mediocrity.
I appreciate it sucks when your favourite bands go South, but trust me better bands than All That Remains have been lost to this along the years.
And that fucking Autotune… there is so much of it all over the place I swear to God that when the solo kicks in on the first song the damn thing is even Autotuned.
This album is a turd, from the artwork, from the press build up, the pro-gun stance which looks even more obnoxious in the face of recent events, from the horrible mawkish lyrics to Stand Up, the dumbass video, the defiant stance against 'internet haters', to the saccharine sweet new material.
I could spend the rest of my days ranting about it, trolling you on your Facebook page, bitching about you on here, but at the end of the day you have made some fantastic music in your time, so I'll leave you with a reminder of that.
But I'll just point out that first week sales are down on the last album…
'I can't remember
The day that you told me
I won't be there, I'm not that strong
Holding these memories
I feel unfolding
This is the last time
Now I'm gone'
- All That Remains 'The Last Time'
Next up the Best of 2013.
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