Review Summary: Generic summary saying that it's generic yet enjoyable...
More Than A Thousand is a portugese band consisting of:
- Vasco Ramos (Vocals
- Filipe Oliveira (Lead Guitar)
- Sergio Sousa (Rhythm Guitar)
- Ricardo Cabrita (Bass)
- Wilson Silva (Drums)
I was randomly searching for some new music and came across these guys. Every single opinion I could find about this album was extremely positive, so I decided to listen to the first song of ''Vol.4 Make Friends And Enemies'' titled ''It's Alive (How I Made A Monster)''. I thought the song was pretty good, featuring a very talented vocalist, a catchy chorus and an addicting ''3,2,1'' breakdown. Their sound could be described as a blend of pretty much everything between Metalcore and Pop-Rock, taking multiple influences to create a catchy yet entirely generic sound.
The song are enjoyable for the most part, but there isn't one once of originality in this album. Musically, this the most formulaic and generic you could expect. The drummer doesn't ever do anything to stand out. He shows some speed at the beginning of ''I Will Always Let You Down'' but never uses it in the rest of the album. His drumming pretty much consists of basic rock beats and switches to breakdown mode from time to time. The guitarists aren't much better, often relying on basic chord progressions with octaves or basic metal riffs which never use the fact that these guys have two guitarists. I'll let you guess what is the role of the bass...
However, even if I seem hard with the band I still really like this album. The obvious highlight is the singer. While his screams aren't my favorites and lack some variation, they still convey genuine emotions throughout. His clean vocals have range, power and may please numberous metal fans tired of typical metalcore cleans. The vocal lines fit with the rest of the band (read: generic) but they still work. Also, the band seems to be having fun, just being five guys that play classic metal without a thousand studio effects to mask weaknesses. They probably sound really good in a live situation because of that.
Also, with all my complaints, there are some obvious highlights. The afore-mentioned ''It's Alive'' starts the album pretty well, because it doesn't pretend to be more than what it is, a good mainstream metal song. ''Black Hearts'' is arguably the best song of the album, with some really good heavy riffs mixed with a great chorus that could be on a ''COLD'' record and a simple yet beautiful bridge/ending. ''Roadsick'' has some calm verses with beautiful soft vocals reminiscent of ''30 SECONDS TO MARS'' and a powerful chorus. Unfortunately, there is also a definite bad song here. The title track is a 2:00 heavy/breakdown song, I don't think there is much to add here...
In conclusion, ''Vol.4 Make Friends And Enemies'' is a good Mainstream-Metal album and doesn't pretend to be anything else. With all its flaws it's still is a great way to initiate someone into heavier music.
Pros:
-Great clean vocals
-Classic metal with very little studio effects
-Catchy as hell
-Enjoyable all the way
Cons:
-Not technical
-Generic as hell
-Screams lack variation
