Review Summary: Did you come here to kill or did you come here to die? Did you come here to kill or did you come here to die? Did you come here to kill or did you come here to die? Did you come here to kill or did you come here to die? Did you come here to kill or did yo
Say what you want about metal outfit Protest the Hero, but I think even the people who claim they’re terribly overrated will admit they have either talent, or potential yet to be realized. Everyone minus Rody (excluded for his debated high-pitched voice) obviously knows their instrument backwards and forwards, and thus, if they haven’t realized all that potential all ready then the band is certainly able. More than that, though, the members (or at least Arif) seem to be smart guys. The lyrics on
Kezia and Arif’s explanation of
Fortress’s concept imply that the guy is pretty smart, and his bandmembers don’t come off as idiots either.
The point I’m trying to build towards here is this: why would 5 seemingly intelligent musicians agree to let their songs be remixed? Given the poor record of remix albums in general, there isn’t much chance of good results. But enough speculating on the intentions or if they had any choice regarding its release - in spring of last year, the master tracks of a standout track of the recently released
Fortress were made available to remix, and the “best” were chosen for a three track EP. One has to wonder what some of the other entries were like.
Press play, and after 34 seconds of electronic helicopter-like sounds and rearranged riffs Rody Walker’s (heavily modified) high-pitched scream enters, and repeats the phrase “
Did you come here to kill or did you come here to die” eight times. What follows in the next four minutes is a horrible splicing and dicing of the various parts of the song – you’re going to hear each of the key vocals parts and riffs, but like an action movie stripped of it’s non-action scenes, they don’t work together at all. That repetition of vocal parts I mentioned earlier helps ruin the rest of the song, but to a slightly lesser degree. Things don’t necessarily get better from here.
L-Ion’s remix is essentially an electronic song that samples vocalist Walker’s voice spasmodically (and painfully) atop uninspired techno “riffs”. Even when analyzed as a techno song, it’s not very good at all. The lesser of three evils here is Devin Townsend’s take on the song. HevyDevy takes the themes of aliens and space travel within Sequoia Throne and builds his entire remix around it: spacey fade ins and fade outs, voice-overs about alternate consciousness, and long ambient sections are all present. It’s still repetitive beyond saving and takes the “concept” a bit too far via sci-fi sound effects that are more laughable than they are fitting.
It’s hard to write much on something this homogeneous or flat-out bad. Each of the three remixes is painfully repetitive, adds little (if any) to the original, and will have even die-hard fans throwing down their headphones from hearing Rody Walker scream/shout various phrases multiple times. Whatever the real motivations behind its creation and release, I doubt anyone intended for the results to be this bad. With any luck, all but the people involved and some too-devoted fans will forget about it - unless you
want those opening lyrics to be temporarily stained on your memory.
