Review Summary: Unfortunately these guys will never be widely known and aren't together, but they still have this one fantastic album.
Here we have a perfect example of a band with a lot of potential that simply got lost in the mix. Skrape only managed to produce 2 albums in their short life together (the second album Up The Dose is hardly worth listening to). Their first effort "New Killer America" is a fun album to listen to indeed. Although this may be considered NuMetal I would consider it quite a few steps ahead of other bands of their Ilk. These guys are heavy, kinda odd, and fairly creative enough that most people should probably give this album a chance. It's not without it's flaws, but all in all this is a very enjoyable listen.
Let me start off with the bad points with this album. To be fair I didn't completely dislike any of the songs on this album which is definitely a good thing. However the track order is somewhat odd to me. They put the lesser songs at the very beginning and at the end, leaving the entire middle section of the album to be the gems. Songs like like "What You Say" and their single "Waste" aren't bad but they fail to stand out to me in anyway. They are heavy, but they can also get a bit boring since they seem a bit more run of the mill than other songs. The same goes for "Sleep" which is towards the end of the album. Come to think of it why did they choose "Waste" as their single? No wonder these guys were looked over that song isn't that great it's simply ok.
Now that we have that bit of nasty business out of the way we can get on to the good stuff. First let me point out that this album has excellent production value for whatever reason. I remember 10 or so years ago when I would put this in my cd player how it would hit so much harder than any of my other albums. Maybe it's just me, but the bass is highly cranked up and is very much audible which is great. All of the instruments and vocals are clear as a bell and none overpower each other. This album is also filled with some very nice synth throughout. From the spacey sounding "Isolated" to the groovy sounding "Kill Control" these songs are most likely gonna get into your head and have you singing along as well. Mix that with some nice heavy power riffs from the dual guitars, and Billy Keeton's great vocals. He actually has quite a bit of range and is definitely easy on the ears. He does both clean, and growling vocals and in between as well. Surprisingly enough two of the slower songs "Sunshine" and "Goodbye" are some of the better songs on the album. Billy's lyrics are pretty good and can be taken a number of ways, so they can relate to different situations.
The best thing about this album is this is one of the few NuMetal disks you might want to listen to in it's entirety. That is quite a feat for a band in this genre if you ask me. Most of the bands of this kind have a few snappy radio hits, but then you listen to the album and the rest is complete garbage. That is not the case here. All the songs are of great quality even the lesser songs are better than most NuMetal bands best songs. It has a very unique sound to it as well I'm not sure I've heard a band that sounds anything like them.
All in all this is a great album and if you are a modern metal fan you should definitely check this out. Don't be turned away by the NuMetal title these guys are definitely worth listening to. As I said before their 2nd album is nowhere near the standard of this one, but it does have a couple good songs worth checking out on it too.
Recommended tracks:
Sunshine
Goodbye
Rise
Kill Control
Broken Knees
