(Reprise Records)
And so to the new release from the official ‘Future of Metal: Grown Up Category’. The new album from The ‘Don has a lot to live up to, their first release on new (major) label and following on from 2004’s Moby Dick masterpiece, Leviathan, a prog-rock colossus that ended the year squatting at the top of many end of year polls. And, you know what? I’m disappointed... I saw them tear through some of these tracks at Reading Festival a couple of weeks ago, and I fully expected this to sound like the end of the world... it just seems to lack the bite. I’m not gonna accuse them of selling out, they’ve certainly progressed with the sound, but to these ears they’ve taken the signpost marked ‘Alt.’ rather than the arch engraved M.E.T.A.L. Sure, Brann Dailor’s jazz-metal drumming is still phenomenal, the guitars roar and screech, but they’ve started, well.. fucking singing. For Christ's sake. I mean, it’s not nu-metal style or anything, but it’s in the same neighbourhood. Trackwise, they’re all pretty good, but the only one that really jumped leapt was Bladecatcher, with it’s insane spazz-punk intro that drops into a looping Thin Lizzyesque riff, but wait a minute, isn’t this the band that used to always finish their sets with Lizzy’s Emerald?
