Don’t get me wrong, I dig this album (to an extent) but some of the tracks tend to adventure off into another world here and there. This album is a long, long way away from their ‘86 demo Ripper Crust. Swinging wildly from trash metal to hardcore punk, to 80’s style glam guitar rock, to well, I just don't fucking know...
Wolfsong/Arcadia begins with wolves howling in the night and quickly bursts into a primal drumbeat behind quick little guitar attacks the echoey vocals bringing mid-career Pantera’s Phil Anselmo to mind. This track is a dark piece with a really relaxed and easy pace up until the final 57 seconds where the band threw in a faster paced punch to lead into the next track.
Sons of Bitches hits hard right off the bat pounding drums fast guitars, this is a trash song with melodic fills, this track reminds me of Hell Bastards earlier work and is spot on a pretty decent tune.
System Whore again gives us a brutal ear drum pounding and then the guitar rolls off into some eighties-ish speed metal licks. Tracking in at five minutes and forty-four minutes this one splits from a fast paced beast into a calm, creepily tranquil keyboard solo worthy of any horror flick.
We Had Evidence (Re-Release) This new recording of the 1988 version off Heading for Internal Darkness brings us an airy keyboard intro with acoustic guitar overlay that leads into a crisp clean electric guitar lead. Think big bleached hair and tight spandex/leather pants in early glam metal era. About a minute and a half in we get to some beefier guitars, more dynamic drumming, and a megaphone mic effect vocal mix in.
Throw The Petrol Bomb is hands down my favorite track on this album and oddly enough is NOTHING like what you’d expect to hear from Hell Bastard at all. It’s a nice crisp little early brit ska sound to it. Damn shame it had no horns though.
Overall opinion of this record is that it’s OK. I’m not really sure where I stand on it. I understand that a band can’t keep rolling the same exact sound for 20+ years, but this album was more like an experiment in genres and styles to me as opposed to a polished solid release. One thing that I can say for sure about Sons of Bitches is that it really shows the range and ability of each musician in HellBastard.
Give it a listen, grab it if ya dig it.
.
HellBastard is: Malcolm Lewty – Guitars / Vocals, Tom McCombe - Guitars, Paul O'Shea - Bass, Josh Harris - Drums
punk thrash metal crust crustpunk hardcore metal Boston
www.hellbastard.co.uk - www.twitter.com/tomhellbastard - www.reverbnation.com/hellbastard - www.myspace.com/rippercrust
ji* - Jacks Insanity
The PoDunk Punk.
No comments:
Post a Comment