Am checking out this Attilah album from the future, circa 2017. I guess this is the kind of thing where you see the shirt at Hot Topic and then buy the tape. Then you take the tape home and fuck the shit out of your girlfriend or sexbot to it. Alas! Those fond memories of banging her to the first White Zombie album. Well flash forward. This album is a lot like that. After that you loan it to a friend, and they never give it back, like what happens with an old VHS porno. Is this album so fleeting of a guilty pleasure?
The first song is enjoyable, however immediately recognizable as a Korn spin-off. The second tune is very disappointing, with a not so great guitar riff which is bar chords moving upwards linearly in a boring key. What is egregious are the Lincoln Park styled vocals on this tune. The third song, where the sing starts talking about being, “Sorry, so sorry,” is really quite wonderful. Didn’t Pee-Wee coin this phrase in the restaurant scene in Nice Dreams? In the future it appears to be a common response to a lot of social media PC snowflake stuff. People who get their feelings hurt easily and can’t stand crude or swear words. Or some red blooded American chauvinism (Smell The Glove). Thankfully, the singer rants effectively against the future, a PC feminist paradise (matriarchy).
One thing that sucks about this band is that the detuned bass and guitar bar chords and percussive riffs are to polyphonic and not melodic enough too. There needs to be more separation both in tone and in the notes they are playing. Albums like this sound like the rhythm guitarist is just a bassist who bought a guitar, but didn’t really learn how to play it. With rhythm playing slightly playing dumbed down on purpose, the best thing about the album so far seems to be these couple of guitar solos that mildly resemble the melodic solos from Ride the Lightning. Another thing that’s cool is these abbreviated Yngwie-like sweeps. The drums being over processed works well for some of the songs, but a few underground drum timbres on a couple songs would have balanced it out more. Song four has a great intro riff by the way. It is like a modern update of Metallica’s One ending machine gun riff. Very effective though.
The rap styled vocals on the album are par for the course. The idea of having some low DM vocals on some parts is neat, however poorly executed. Some of the songs seem almost danceable. Maybe this album is more intended for the female dub-step audience. Being fairly close to mainstream, perhaps a band such as this could help bring non metal listeners and help to convert them to metal. Then, at a later date, they can go to the store and trade in their Attilah tape for something better, like Séance. Grading this album from a DM perspective, one would be forced to grant this a C at this point. As a representation of mainstream metal, it will help to pull sheep from the herd, which we can then ritually slaughter (just kidding Metoo#! Jeez!) or (hopefully) convert to DM at a later date. This band can be DM’s useful idiot.
Intermission Rant: Metal needs more hot chicks at the shows in ‘Merica. Plenty of em in Czech etc already. Dubstep concerts are full of 10,00 college girls dancing in their underwear in groups. If Attilah can help switch Skrillex female following over to metal someday, then I will honestly have to commend them with like a bro high-five. However from a death metal perspective I would still be hard pressed to grant it a grade above average. It just goes to show, average students get al the chicks.
Back to the album. Song 5, Moshpit, is a standout as a hybrid between Bassnectar and say, Pantera. I’d say its rather slick. Presumably it would have a lot of energy with a live audience. It is also the song where his rap actually is impressive, as the rhythm and pacing picks up dramatically. The lyrics are dumbed down for the masses. Within them lies an explosive energy nevertheless. What will these retards do with their energy? MOSH!!! (Hope you don’t chip a toothe in there…)
Moving through the center, meaty part of the album, the Panera influence starts to shine through. A lot of riffs , such as song 6 generally, take on either a chunky end of This Love bar chord type feel, or a Far Beyond Driven type of determination. For that matter, this whole album is mixed kinda like Far Beyond , distortion wise. The album is starting to come up a notch. Can I forgive this album for that Lincoln Parkinsons-ish riff from earlier? Hmmm… And when is the Boss green Atilah guitar distortion pedal coming out?
Well, I could go on. But you probably hate this band already. This review is sure to inspire pink tranny rapist trolls throughout the land to go and do their thing. I give it a pass anyways. It is fairly listenable.