Review Summary: Incompetent beyond belief, Invasion Metropolis is an absolute affront to the thrash metal genre.
Thrash metal has been in a rut for years. Since the inception, the genre has mostly stagnated, with many current bands simply emulating the style that worked in the golden age. While this works in some cases, it often comes off as a soulless rehash of glory days past. In the best cases it can be seen as a heartfelt tribute to an era long gone. On the other hand, when performed poorly, it may seem as though the band is spitting on the legacy established by the Big Four. An example of this is Solitaire's
Invasion Metropolis, which takes everything which is flawed about thrash metal and blends it into one of the most repulsive creations ever cast upon the scene.
Beginning with the extremely original concept of backmasked speech, Solitaire stumbles through their third album, unleashing nothing less than 38 minutes of excruciating aural torture. Almost every facet of the band is staggeringly weak: apart from the drum performance, everything heard here is incredibly far below what should be expected from the performance given on a full-length release. The guitar work is fast, but to the point that the guitarist can't seem to keep time properly. Many sections of the album seem to be performed in a very sloppy manner, and the entirety of the production feels unrehearsed, and incomplete. Not to be outdone, however, the guitar work is not even the weakest part of the album. The vocalist is mindbogglingly atrocious. An accented voice stumbles clumsily alongside the rest of the band. In the best moments, it is annoying. In the worst, it is enough to build a desire to claw one's throat out. Painful screams sharply pierce the eardrums of the listener in a way which is utterly pathetic. His performance almost always seems out of pitch, and the shining moments of the band are during the instrumental sections of each song, when the "singer" is resting his mangled vocal cords.
The album is devoid of originality. Generic riffs push each song along, with little done to distinguish each song from one another. As a result, each individual track is quite forgettable. Completely uninspired performances bog down the album even more, seeming passionless and stale. Mindless tremolo picking can be heard all throughout, with very little variety between songs. This is unfortunate, as this means the quality remains consistent for the entirety of the album. As mentioned beforehand, this is not a good thing.
Normally there is at least something good to be said about a bad album. Unfortunately, this is not the case with
Invasion Metropolis. The entirety of the production is startlingly incompetent, never doing anything that can even be described as acceptable in terms of songwriting, performances, or anything one would ever hope to find in an adequate album. The best thing Solitaire has provided with this album is a standard against which other albums can be held: if your album sounds anywhere near as poor as
Invasion Metropolis you have made a grave error.
