Review Summary: For a Fest Of, it's not bad. For a Best Of...not so much.
A band's life can sometimes get frustrating. You start your group with your friends, or at least other like-minded musicians, and of course you want to make yourself heard, to shafre your musical ideas with the world. But of course, it often doesn't go that way. Most bands toil in obscurity for years, before eventually breaking up out of frustration. The more resilient ones may get a decent cult or local following, but it is the rare artist that manages to actually make it to the top.
Recently, however, a new phenomenon seems poised to help musicians old and new in this most frustrating of journeys: the Internet. Free, legal music sharing has become the new "in" thing, with sites like MySpace or Jamendo serving as proving grounds for many micro- to decent-sized bands to peddle their wares free of charge. More recently, some actually famous bands caught on to the craze, giving away special "free" records; for the most part, however, free music sharing continues to be the domain of small and underground bands, both old and new.
Representing the "old" sector on Jamendo are French traditional metallers Revenge, who after making their 2008 opus
Unbankable available for free download, decided to have another go with a specially-crafted compilation entitled
Fest Of Revenge. No, not
Best Of or
Feast Of.
Fest Of. Must be a French thing.
Either way,
Fest Of Revenge comprises 12 tracks, assumedly spanning the band's 15-year career, and much like
Unbankable, presents as many highs as it does lows. The overall level is a little higher this time around, but the record still presents too many inconsistencies to really be entirely commendable.
The professed style hasn't changed one iota in relation to
Unbankable: it's still über-traditional heavy metal, with some admittedly fist-pumping riffs and, this time around, some instances of awesome soloing. However, the songwriting continues to be hit-or-miss, with plenty of silly moments (there is a song called
Nasty For Boyz, for Christ's sake!) and a surprising number of drab filler songs for a supposed Best-Of. However, when it works, it still
works, as the irresistible
Good Good Shot or the surprisingly layered
Glorified (a straight-up metal song with a romantic feel) will attest.
Still, much like with
Unbankable, things are far from perfect. While the album does start off strong, and does keep the listener's interest throughout, it's also undeniable that there are quite a few missteps littered across its duration. The biggest one is probably
Scream, a turgid song that should not have been a B-side, let alone part of a Best-Of. Other examples, albeit less blatant, include
Shake It and
Eat Me One More Time, a track which has absolutely
no excuse for being over six minutes long. Even strong backup songs like
I Just Wanna Rock end up suffering from this sindrome, with their bang-tastic riffs being offset by idiotic, unimaginative lyrics like
"I just wanna rock, I just wanna roll/I just wanna rock and roll". These amateurish details end up bringing the final product down, even while it mantains a perfectly decent level of quality.
In the end, then, it is hard to be mad at
Fest Of Revenge. It is a perfectly pleasant listening experience, and the fact that it's free should speak even more in its favour. The band also don't sound so glued to one influence this time around, with P'tit Jo in particular going for his adenoidal Brian Johnson impression at least as much as his Udo impression. The end result is by no means a masterpiece, but at least constitutes an honest and solid metal album well worth a download.
Recommended Tracks
Good Good Shot
Hear You Callin'
Glorified
Download it legally and for free HERE: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/36156
