Droids Attack
Must Destroy
Crustacean Records
Droids Attack is a bizarre sandwich to try and chew on because their meat is so different than most out there. It’s not that Droids Attack have this revolutionary sound, it’s big riffs, doom influenced rock with a penchant for lively drums but how they execute their songs gives them a little something over your average riff centered rock band.
The execution here has to do with Droids Attack having more of a punk aesthetic than a rock one so while the rock fires out groovy and hard driving it’s all done in relatively short bursts. Most big rock bands drag their songs out to seven or eight minutes feeling somehow that we’ll all benefit from extra guitar masturbation. Droids Attack would rather show up, blow the speakers up and then steal all the beer. They have no time for jerking off over six strings and thank God for that.
The band’s new studio record Must Destroy means exactly that, they’re here to lay waste to you and yet you’ll be grooving the whole time. The album kicks off with a forgettable opening track (consisting of mostly robot noises) and then quickly rights itself with the fist fight riff battle jam “Great Wall Of Gina” an Atomic Bitchwax song if it had been written by The Melvins.
Droids Attack excels at wearing their influences on their sleeve without succumbing to them. The tune “Arcade Bully” has a southern rock flavor to it but without actually sounding like southern rock. Droids Attack avoids getting held captive by anything they're doing by tossing in elements that shake up the flow of the album. It doesn’t kill the groove at all it just disrupts any common threads to other sounds.
Must Destroy reminds me a lot of what the next Sleep record could’ve sounded like. High On Fire has never sounded like the next level of Sleep but rather an animal looking to not sound like its predecessor. Droids Attack have that same lazy drawl to how they play that Sleep did as well as that same ability to make the entire record feel like it’s stoned. I’m not saying the song writing here is in league with Sleep but rather that the album has that vibe more so than other bands.. One of my favorite tracks “Crisis In The City”, is Droids Attack at their finest. A slow plodding intro that gives way to a groovy doom riff largely encrusted with punk. It’s that kind of push and pull that makes Must Destroy so enjoyable.
If I had to lodge one complaint I’d ask the drummer to calm down just a little bit. The overplaying on some of the songs gets in the way of the groove and feels like showing off just to prove it can be done. In this kind of music the rhythm section is everything and when the drummer over plays the whole song suffers. Regardless of that Droids Attack have done themselves proud with Must Attack by making a loud punk record that will groove the shit out of you.
CraveOnline's Rating: 7 1/2 Out Of 10
SKEPSIS
Through The Eyes of the Dead
PROSTHETIC RECORDS
Meanwhile those of you longing to have a tooth removed with a jackhammer look no further than Skepsis and their death metal opus Through The Eyes Of The Dead. It’s hard to really review an album like this mainly because there’s not much in the way of variation of style or song structure. Skepsis play fast, and then faster and then when all else fails they play fastest.
So exactly how do you review an album like this, what can I say that will convince non Death Metal fans to buy this or stop Death Metal lovers from not buying it? Truth is if you’re a fan of the genre then you could do way worse than picking up Through The Eyes Of The Dead. It has everything the disconcerting metal fan needs in their demonic, evil powered extreme music. You get a huge helping of fast and intricate guitar work, a thick slab of meaty machine gun drums, plus a rib-sticking dash of riffage for good measure. Layered over all of this is a black sauce of growly death metal vocals barking about all things dark and evil.
If you don’t love Death Metal then Skepsis are just another band on a large pile of bands that all sound the same. My problem with this genre has always been the fact that it never grows beyond its own walls. Are fans of this stuff content on buying the same thing over and over again? It isn’t that these bands are bad it’s more that they never transcend themselves to make something new. I’m sure Death Metal could survive some experimentation or at least a band that ventures a half step out of the box. Skepsis make no attempt to do that but they do play within the limitations better than most.
Back to my problem about how can you review an album that is more another etch into a genre stone than any kind of statement. I can’t render a good review because I find the whole enterprise exceedingly boring but I can’t say it’s a bad record for the exact same reason. It’s as if Skepsis and their Death Metal brothers have fashioned a cocoon that allows them to exist in their own universe with only those who wish to be there.
If I don’t live in that cocoon do I even have the right to look at Through The Eyes Of The Dead with a critical eye? What I can say is that wrapped within their own cocoon Skepsis do a flawless and high-energy version of the exact same thing all the bands in their world are doing.
