Bullet Point Metal Reviews

Concise Summary:  I've never been a huge Five Finger Death Punch fan, but I did buy their "Decade of Destruction album" and I think that the songs on there pretty well exemplify FFDP's best work. And Justice for None (as far as the two songs go that they didn't recycle from Decade of Destruction), however, is a steaming heap of garbage. It takes pretty much everything good about FFDP and throws it out, leaving pointless profanity, cookie-cutter riffs, shallow lyrics, and pathetic songwriting. Featuring lyrics such as  "I'm not dead, I'm still alive You don't like it, you can go ahead and die" on Rock Bottom and "You're a fake mother****er, I hate you, mother****er I'll break you, mother****er, you're mine" on Fake, I think that Ivan Moody may have a mental age of 13. The rest of the lyrics on the album are also basically "edgy teen gets angry at the world" type garbage. The songwriting is literally less...

Concise Summary: When I started listening to KVEN, I thought, "Wow, this really sounds like Raubtier." After some quick research, I was somewhat unsurprised to find out that Hulkoff is Pär Hulkoff's solo project, and that he is the lead singer and guitarist for Raubtier. With that perspective, I suppose it's not surprising that Hulkoff sounds almost identical to Raubtier, but I still would have liked to see something different from Hulkoff. As is, KVEN could easily pass as a Raubtier album; there's not much to make it unique. The guitars are extremely heavy and the singing is very guttural, just like Raubtier. The songwriting is based on chugging guitars more than intricate riffs and there isn't much for variety in instruments, again, just like Raubtier. Because Hulkoff is basically one-man Raubtier, it has the same issues as Raubtier. The mixing on KVEN is oppressively balanced toward the low end, the guitar sounds muddy, and half of the songs sound li...

Concise Summary: Well, after Beast in Black released Berserker last month, I thought I'd heard the best album of the year. However, Nemesis, from relatively new band Defecto, gives Berserker a run for its money in my book! Nemesis is incredible . The start of the album is extremely heavy and sounds amazing, but near the end of track three, I started to tire a bit of the heavy sound and began to want a reprieve. Unlike 98% of albums that would have just continued the barrage, the guys from Defecto must have realized that the heavy sound wasn't maintainable, and they brought in a style change on the fourth track to a lighter, more straight-up metal sound without tons of instrumentation. The rest of the album continued that pattern of changing styles to avoid boredom and/or ear fatigue, but it never lost coherency. Absolutely brilliant songwriting and arranging. Especially considering the fact that this is only Defecto's second album, I'm completely blown awa...

Concise Summary: The Rose of Lilith is a little-known band from the United States, and Soulless is their second single, their first being from 2015. Soulless is an interesting song from multiple standpoints, the first of which is vocally. With names like Lance King (formerly of Pyramaze), Ralf Scheepers (of Primal Fear), Mikel Johnston (of Heretical Lacerations), and Andi Kravljaca (of Aeon Zen), there are a wide variety of vocal styles on Soulless, all of which are very well-done. However, I think that the vocals should have been separated more. As it is, Mikel Johnston seems to do most of the singing, and when the other three come in, at least two are generally singing in harmony, which drowns out their individual voices. The harmony is OK, but I think it would have been better to have a two-person stereo harmony (instead of being mono like it is). Basically I think that, for example, Lance and Ralf should have done a harmony with Lance balanced left and Ralf balanced rig...

Concise Summary: Shakra is certainly not a new band, but Snakes and Ladders is the first album that I have listened to from them. The first thing that immediately stood out to me was the vocals. They are a bit too whiny for my liking; it sounds like the singer is singing through his nose but also adding compression to his vocals. That ends up making a raspy/whiny sound, kind of like early M. Shadows vocals from Avenged Sevenfold, but not as refined and with a warmer, more full rasp. As I think about it,  the singer from Shakra sounds a bit like the singer from Nocturnal Rites, but more nasally. Aside from that, I really like the instrumentals on this album: it's another cool example of throwback-sounding music with modern recording. I like the old-school approach of just drums, vocals, guitar, and bass without much for any other instruments. Because there aren't an overwhelming number of instruments going at once, no ear fatigue really sets in, and the mixing on th...

Concise Summary: In my opinion, Release the Panic back in 2013 was a style transition album into Of Beauty and Rage, which, in turn, set the tone for Gone. However, I think that Of Beauty and Rage and Gone sound way too similar. Both albums seem to have apocalyptic themes to the lyrics, there's a lot of synth, the drums are electronic, there are really no technical guitar parts, and the singing is generally quiet with a few screams thrown in for some variety. Granted, it's a pretty unique sound, but having Of Beauty and Rage and Gone sound so similar, especially with regard to lyrical themes, is just... boring. In my opinion, each album should tell a different story, but Gone just seems to tell the same story that Of Beauty and Rage told: a vague, apocalyptic, dark, and fairly hopeless story. Because the story is so vague, it's not even like a two-part continuation. Apart from the story (or lack thereof), Gone is probably a better album than Of Beauty and Rage. ...

Concise Summary: The Unguided is a band that has apparently been around for quite awhile, but I just found them today. After listening to their newest album, And The Battle Royale, I think I'll be listening to more of their music in the future! And The Battle Royale has fairly synth-driven songs with both clean and screamed vocals. The style is almost like synth-driven metalcore, which I think is a pretty cool and unique concept. That being said, And The Battle Royale doesn't display much style diversity - most of the album is pretty much only has that metalcore-ish sound. As a result, a lot of the songs sound very similar, making the album seem kind of "flat", if you will; the songs seem to run together. Overall, this is a very good album, and I really enjoyed listening to it, but the style diversity is lacking.  My Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Highlights: Excellent vocals Interesting musical style Enjoyable overall sound and feel to the album...