Review Summary: Putting aside the obvious input of Black Tide’s influences Post Mortem is a commercially enjoyable album.
Black Tide’s second album is an unspectacular attempt at a commercially viable metal record. What must be understood is that if the listener comes into
Post Mortem expecting something interesting or groundbreaking, they will find themselves being bored to tears. A couple of things have changed from their debut effort
Light From Above. Firstly the clean vocals have improved, with the inclusion of screamed passages. The drums now incorporate double bass work and the bass guitar has a stronger presence.
Post Mortem has also seen a slightly heavier writing style losing
Light From Above’s rather thrash rock sound.
Lyrically,
Post Mortem is uninspiring. Most songs incorporate large amounts of cliché phrases (see ‘Bury Me’,
“Take my life, cause it’s already over, just bury me, just bury me”). These cliché passages are not aided by the simple and at times obvious rhyming patterns creating a rather stale aspect to the album. The instrumentation provides most of the interest on
Post Mortem found mainly in the guitar work and their respective solo passages. There are some hard hitting riffs and tasteful chord progressions that accompany the lyrical phrases well and reinforce the album’s level of catchiness. Thankfully the bass work is more noticeable this time around; the bass backs the guitar’s rhythm sections well and thickens the sound when combined with the drum work. The drums themselves have a greater impact on the listener. With the inclusion of the double bass the drums make for a more interesting listen without becoming overly technical.
Post Mortem can at times define the word: ‘generic’, but that doesn’t mean the album is worthless, there are some very catchy, sing-a-long moments to be had. One example includes ‘Let It Out’ where the hook is used so much that the listener may not be able to stop themselves from joining in. Highlighting the album is track ‘Walking Dead Man’. The track sees much of the up-beat tempo that most listeners will be familiar with, and also contains various amounts of screaming and yelling. There is a high display of the guitarist’s technical ability found in the lead work and opening solo.
For a change of pace, including acoustic passages is track ‘Into The Sky’. For the most part the track is acoustic but interestingly a symphonic backing becomes the dominant source of instrumentation coupled with the band’s drummer. This ballad styled track highlights a soppy, sad side to the band with lyrics like
“ I will meet you there” repeated over and over again.
Overall,
Post Mortem is catchy and expectantly cliché, but is in no way pushing boundaries or making the musical world take notice of
Black Tide. The album is lyrically bland with its typical and obvious rhyming patterns. It can be enjoyed to a certain extent but is unlikely to reach the heights that the band is hoping it will achieve.
