Sometimes I'm interested in what other people think about certain things that I might like. I usually look for bad reviews though, just to see what they think is wrong with whatever.
I just finished reading this review for Covenant..
I looked at this guys reviews, it's like he has nothing else to do except review bands.
Horrible drumming, mediocre riffs - 48%
Written by UltraBoris on March 15th, 2003
Well, this sounds like about a sixth-rate Pleasure to Kill ripoff. That's really what the riffs are. There's a lot of single-note repetition riffs... one note eight times, another eight times, etc etc. Apparently this is typical "death metal" riffage... but damn if that doesn't sound anything like Possessed, Nocturnus, etc etc. This isn't really an awful album, it is just pretty mediocre. There's one good song on here (Angel of Disease) and then a lot of songs which are generally similar sounding and all pretty mediocre.
The riffage varies in quality, with some occasionally brilliant ones coming in, but generally they are buried beneath a pretty horrible rhythm-guitar tone that de-emphasises the individual notes and goes for a blurry incoherent sound. Oddly enough, the album goes on it gets better, with the guitar tone clearing itself up slightly on the last few songs compared to the first few.
There are some decent riffs. For example, at 1:57 of "Rapture". Below that squealing "solo" is a solid midpaced riff. Also, the solos are pretty damn good. That's the highlight of the album - the lead guitars. But the riffs are just boring as fuck.
Oh and the drumwork - this hard-on bearer needs to seriously be shot in the head. Do we need a fucking fill every three seconds? I won't bother to name specific examples, they abound. But, what the Hell - first few seconds of Pain Abound. The drums are far too loud in the mix, and what would be actually a halfway good riff is ruined by the interference - of course the riff at 0.26 is far inferior to the one before it, and is again one of those bad "death metal" type riffs. This wouldn't be a bad song, except it's just so... boring. It sounds like a rejected track from Reign in Blood, as it moves forward at the same pace from beginning to end, with the distracting drumbeat underneath.
World of Shit starts off promising - a decent intro riff, though it sounds completely out of tune. This is not in standard tuning, and is probably two off (C or whatever tuning) and the guitar tone is quite forgettable. It's not particularly heavy or dark or scary, it's just kinda there. But still, the slow part is decent, and the song only gets atrocious when it speeds up at 1.08 - this is total grindcore right here. Go ahead and tell me this is death metal, and let me show you Zombie Ritual. The tick-tick-tick drumming is irritating, and the guitar is very generic. "Let's play fast to see if we can catch up with the drummer." Again, the solo is kinda cool, and there is a cool riff at around 2.14. There is another great riff at 3.05, which however quickly disappears into terrible noise, before coming back once more at the end. Yay for the "modern" idea that you're supposed to throw in everything but the kitchen sink when you're out of good solid ideas and the ability to cohesively link them together.
There's a lot of Slayerisms in here... Vengeance is Mine starts off with a similar riff to Rapture - that Divine Intervention styled "Angel of Death or War Ensemble, but without the really interesting part" riff. It's the guitar, really - the notes just blend into each other, and there isn't a good sharpness from note to note. The riff loses distinction and kinda melts. This would be a great song, as the riffage at 0.48 is solid again. The one at 1.45 is much less so. Again, the drummer feels the need to throw in that silly fill all the time. Just contrast that riff with the main riff of the song, which comes back at 2.25 - that is a pretty damn good riff, and if they turned the distortion down from the over-saturating setting, added some viciousness to the guitar tone, and shot the drummer, this would be a good song.
The Lion's Den has a good intro riff, but again disintegrates into indistinguishability soon enough. Then the riff at around 1.47 pretty much sums up this album as a whole: that Kreator-style ripoff riff. Same note 4 times, different note, 4 times, then another 4 times... notes coming in 4's. Don't believe me? Listen to "Ripping Corpse", the riff after the chorus at 1.32. Now imagine THAT guitar tone transplanted to THIS album.
Blood on my Hands... this is starting to get very repetitive, with a lot of very similar riffs. I'm sure the distinctions are there, but the album does suffer from Reign in Blood syndrome, where a lot of the songs just run together without any really distinctive ideas. Another forgettable song, filled with mediocre riffs. Though at the end it gets kind of interesting, with the choppy riff at 3.20 - yes, they discover that by adding more dynamic variation to their guitar, they can increase the quality of their riffs. If it doesn't blend together and fuzz out at the edges, it's more discernable and better. However throw in the awful drumming at 3.31... that's terrible.
Angel of Disease. Whooaaa, now this is where the album momentarily picks up. This has a lot of sections that are solid headbanging material, and if I didn't know any better I'd say it was an Exumer cover. The guitar style picks up a lot, with the riffs being a lot sharper and a lot more defined. Also, there is a lot of tempo changes in the song - like at 1.48, that is a thrash break that would make Sodom proud. "Angel of Disease!" The middle part sounds like something taken from Carnivore... then that leads into a blazing solo. Wow, if all Morbid Angel sounded like this, then they would be quite the good band. Did I mention the drummer is nicely complementing the riffs? Nice fucking riff at 3:46 in after the main solo, and then we go back to the midpaced stuff, with a few fast parts lasting only a second or so thrown in - but oddly enough this works. The only bad part of the song is the 30 seconds of random noise at the end. Otherwise, we have a winner that the rest of the album should aspire to.
Sworn to the Black goes back to the generic style that made the rest of the album so forgettable. Another generally forgettable song - though the solo is very interesting at around the 2.00 point, and there is some decent riffage immediately following it. This isn't as bad as some of the other songs on here, but the beginning and the very end are certainly blending in with the rest.
Nar Mattaru - I'm not gonna ask.
God of Emptiness is another interesting one, but I don't mean that in the good sense. It pretty much turns into a laugher halfway through. It starts off with some slow doomish riffs, but immediately the drummer decides to get all creative on us. Just... shut... up and let the guitars do their thing. Unfortunately this song doesn't really go anywhere. It is sort of like Black Sabbath, but not really, as it lacks the true overwhelming memorability of the riffs. There's a weird middle section that speeds up a bit, and the vocals suddenly get a whole fuckload more evil, but even that can't really save the rest of the song, which just plods along, looking for Saint Vitus but ends up sounding more like Type O Negative... especially that almost self-parody part at "Bow to me faithfully, bow to me splendidly" part... this is death metal?? Oh man, I almost died laughing, what a way to close the album.
So every once in a while this band does get creative, just not in the right way. Too many silly drums, and by the end it really goes off the deep end, with that keyboard piece and then that... oh man, "bow to me splendidly". That makes "Satan's coming 'round the bend" (Black Sabbath of course) sound like the epitome of seriousness. The riffs could use a lot of help, and also the album would benefit from having more than ONE good song on here. It's like that one song is an aberration as it sounds almost nothing like the rest - most of this album is eminently forgettable.
and under the reviews for GTA some hard-on bearer says "If you liked Altars of Madness then you will be very disappointing with this."
