Vibes and Stuff.
Wazzup, my name's Femi. Nappy-headed and intelligent. I despise emoticons and numerical hearts. I usually post stuff that interests me; 75% reblogged and 25% original. My musical qualities are chiefly Old School Hip-Hop and Techno. I also run this blog.
Femdog v. Metal: World Gone Dead
“World Gone Dead,” the third studio album from thrash metal band Lich King, feels a bit stale beyond the beginning. Yes, there are haunting riffs, drums that sound like an eager salvo from a green beret, and the overbearing, lurching screams of a vocalist, announcing the nihilistic doom of a hopeless multitude. But the sum of all these parts still left me bored.
The fault of my boredom amounts to a number of reasons. The main one probably lies in the genre. Thrash metal has made its claim to fame by being a swift and unrelenting barrage of atonal guitar groans with drums played at the speed of artillery fire. Unlike classic metal, which flaunted masculinity by utilizing classic literature or folklore, thrash became concerned with the impending annihilation of everything, including themselves.
Another reason, and a major one, has to be the extremely overbearing vocals. I don’t know what the lead “singer’s” problem is, but he forces himself to belch, scream, and assault my ears to get these lyrics out, as if each recording session included a disembowelment. And to add insult to injury, I can barely understand a word he is saying.
Listening to each song was a chore. If the instrumentation kicked ass, it didn’t matter because the vocals splattered on top ruined the fun. If the instrumentation was mediocre or uninspired, his vocals simply wasted my patience.
“Grindwheel” was the only song that truly came together. It begins with a slow, rusty grind of a riff and contains lyrics calling for the damnation of an unlucky prisoner: “There’s no holy man for you/There’s no final meal/You’ve been caught and sentenced to/Grind beneath the wheel.”
The song appealed to me because the subject matter was pretty insane and well-crafted compared to the mishmash of ideas that became the other songs. What a horrid punishment for an offender that must be. No final meal?!? Damn.
It was also the only song whose lyrics I could actually understand without a Google search.
“World Gone Dead” might have been killer in concept, but it only managed to kill any of my enthusiasm in execution due to the excess of boring riffs, lazy solos, and a poor vocal performance.
