Post by (((O))) on Mar 13, 2008 15:52:52 GMT
I thought we could have a thread about our album reviews. I'll start:
www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=178334
www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=178334
Good rockin' stuff, but lots of awful filler. - 65%
Written by caspian on March 10th, 2008
What kind of genre do you think normally produces albums that are 79 minutes long? Prog Rock, maybe? Drone? Perhaps some of the longer classical pieces, or a particularly sadistic funeral doom band?
All of those are understandable answers, but the answer in this case is truly unexpected: Triangle Theory traffic in a kind of sludgy hard rock/metal stuff that while competent, goes on for 79 minutes. A seventy nine minute long sludgy metal album.
Seventy Nine Minutes.
And that pretty much sums up the problems with this record. If this was, say, 40-50 minutes long I can definitely see this getting an 80. Triangle Theory can pull off some terrific songs, no doubt, but these guys just don't have 80 minutes worth of material. Really, the whole album is very reminiscent of a young and possibly over enthusiastic band giving us the best they've got, and when they run out of that, giving some more that is, to be frank, sub-par. The amount of filler is unbelievable- tracks 2 to 5 are quite dire and almost had me turning this album off- and it's a shame, as without all the filler this would be a beast of an album.
Yeah, once you get the skip button handy there's plenty to enjoy here. Some sort of Motorbreath/black album era Metallica/High on Fire hybrid seems to be on offer here, maybe with a bit of southern rock as well. Certainly many of the riffs are huge, and if it wasn't for all of the negative connotations I'd even say this album grooves. These guys do quite well at the slow and crushing kinda thing, but they definitely excel when they get mid tempo or above that- Swallow the Sun, Power Son and Innocent Bloodshed are the best three songs on the album, and are probably the fastest three tunes. Power Son in particular is an excellent tune, with the vocals in particular on that song really suggesting that perhaps this band has quite a bright future ahead of it. While Bryce Sutherland is often content doing a baritone-Hetfield impersonation (not that there's anything wrong with that), it's when he stretches his range a bit that the whole thing starts to pick up.
Yeah, when these guys get it right it sounds terrific- the 20 minute 'Wrath' is another good example essentially being really long jams with a song squeezed somewhere, and is actually a really good listen (not to mention a few highly enjoyable dual lead action scattered throughout the track)- but there's a lot to suggest that they've got a while to go. While I can appreciate that the recording was done on an extremely limited budget, that doesn't really change the fact that it's lacking to some extent. Often the left and right channels will be quite inbalanced, the drums just simply aren't loud enough, and when the solos come in the volume will often drop right out, which can be quite anticlimatic. It's not enough to ruin the songs or anything, but if these tunes were given proper mixes then this would be excellent.
..Or rather, most of it would be excellent. There's really no excuse for putting these many songs into one cd, and the album definitely suffers as a result. The last half of this album is great, the front half however is quite shit and that's not really a good thing for a young band to have. Overall, this is a solid release that you should probably buy- here's hoping that next time their album is a bit shorter.
Written by caspian on March 10th, 2008
What kind of genre do you think normally produces albums that are 79 minutes long? Prog Rock, maybe? Drone? Perhaps some of the longer classical pieces, or a particularly sadistic funeral doom band?
All of those are understandable answers, but the answer in this case is truly unexpected: Triangle Theory traffic in a kind of sludgy hard rock/metal stuff that while competent, goes on for 79 minutes. A seventy nine minute long sludgy metal album.
Seventy Nine Minutes.
And that pretty much sums up the problems with this record. If this was, say, 40-50 minutes long I can definitely see this getting an 80. Triangle Theory can pull off some terrific songs, no doubt, but these guys just don't have 80 minutes worth of material. Really, the whole album is very reminiscent of a young and possibly over enthusiastic band giving us the best they've got, and when they run out of that, giving some more that is, to be frank, sub-par. The amount of filler is unbelievable- tracks 2 to 5 are quite dire and almost had me turning this album off- and it's a shame, as without all the filler this would be a beast of an album.
Yeah, once you get the skip button handy there's plenty to enjoy here. Some sort of Motorbreath/black album era Metallica/High on Fire hybrid seems to be on offer here, maybe with a bit of southern rock as well. Certainly many of the riffs are huge, and if it wasn't for all of the negative connotations I'd even say this album grooves. These guys do quite well at the slow and crushing kinda thing, but they definitely excel when they get mid tempo or above that- Swallow the Sun, Power Son and Innocent Bloodshed are the best three songs on the album, and are probably the fastest three tunes. Power Son in particular is an excellent tune, with the vocals in particular on that song really suggesting that perhaps this band has quite a bright future ahead of it. While Bryce Sutherland is often content doing a baritone-Hetfield impersonation (not that there's anything wrong with that), it's when he stretches his range a bit that the whole thing starts to pick up.
Yeah, when these guys get it right it sounds terrific- the 20 minute 'Wrath' is another good example essentially being really long jams with a song squeezed somewhere, and is actually a really good listen (not to mention a few highly enjoyable dual lead action scattered throughout the track)- but there's a lot to suggest that they've got a while to go. While I can appreciate that the recording was done on an extremely limited budget, that doesn't really change the fact that it's lacking to some extent. Often the left and right channels will be quite inbalanced, the drums just simply aren't loud enough, and when the solos come in the volume will often drop right out, which can be quite anticlimatic. It's not enough to ruin the songs or anything, but if these tunes were given proper mixes then this would be excellent.
..Or rather, most of it would be excellent. There's really no excuse for putting these many songs into one cd, and the album definitely suffers as a result. The last half of this album is great, the front half however is quite shit and that's not really a good thing for a young band to have. Overall, this is a solid release that you should probably buy- here's hoping that next time their album is a bit shorter.