Review Summary: Night of the living bored to death…
There used to be a time, long ago, where “loud and heavy” were just about good enough. Rebelling against the pre-conceived notion of what music
should be, many artists branched out to push the boundaries with unconventional subject matter and song writing. Letting their ambitions guide them, these trailblazers helped lay down the path for future generations. But in this day and age, listeners expect more from their music. They expect sonic manipulations to go beyond what can cause the most aural damage, instead wishing for newer, more tangible experiences. Apparently, legendary grind outfit Terrorizer, have not received this message.
The perplexingly sophomoric name of their newest album,
Hordes of Zombies, calls to mind mass chaos and carnage in a world torn asunder. It even hearkens back to their genre defining debut,
World Downfall. However, despite these allusions,
Hordes of Zombies is a rather harmless release. Terrorizer are stuck in a mindset where simple heaviness and speed are able to trump well thought out songwriting with 2006’s
Darker Days Ahead falling into the trap as well. Like that album,
Hordes of Zombies is a shallow experience. Instead of beautifully blending grind and death metal, Terrorizer shirks almost all of the former, focusing squarely on metal. Yet what arises is nothing more than a vapid, half-formed record that sees the band attempting to emulate their storied past and failing miserably.
Hordes of Zombies is a difficult record to describe, because to be quite frank, there is not a lot here. Underneath the strict death metal veneer is an album void of any intrigue or creativity. There are plenty of riffs and blast beats, sure, but there is not a whole lot built around them. The album keeps a brisk pace, and is packed full of standard length tracks, but because of this, it’s bizarrely difficult to differentiate between any of the songs. Every so often the band will begin to break away with an interesting guitar solo, only to fall back down into the doldrums, chugging away until the song just comes to a stop. The homogeneity essentially destroys the few bright moments of the record, and makes the entire effort a bloated and drab affair.
The Terrorizer of today is not the band that helped lead a musical revolt those twenty-two years ago. The band seen nowadays is a shadow of what was once a truly remarkable and creative collective of musicians.
Hordes of Zombies, with its laughable lyrical content and stunningly bland musical delivery, is a complete misfire, and yet another nail in the coffin.
