Review Summary: The fist-clenching faux metal cowboys are up to their same old tricks.
Run for the hills, Hellyeah are at it again. In theory, this all-star group sounded like it could be history in the making, but in practice, it’s still a disaster. It’s not the themes and content we’re presented with that is laughable; frankly, who doesn’t enjoy scantily clad women, pounding brews, killing time with the boys, and acting like a badass? What’s headshakingly-bad about Hellyeah is the absurdly-immature manner in which they deliver it all. Impressionable teenagers from the South and low-IQ individuals everywhere have got to be the target audience for this. Mind you, Hellyeah are all aged 38-49; they’re not exactly young pups fresh to the game anymore and the whole package comes across as ridiculous. After one piece of under-achieving waste (aka their first album) and two deja vu episodes later, I can say with reasonable certainty this project will always be a huge sh*t-stain on the guys’ resumés.
The horrendously boring and uninspired riffs; the predictable lyrical content; the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus song structure that frequently rears its ugly head; it’s all identical to their 2007 and 2010 releases.
Band of Brothers is just completely devoid of anything worthwhile. There have, however, been marginal improvements. Whereas the riffs used to sound like they were created to resemble garbage, now they sound like there was at least some effort put forth; mind you they‘re still overwhelmingly bland and amateurish though. The songs and riffs have more groove and bluesy influence than on the prior records, but again, the quality hasn’t leaped forward by any stretch of the imagination.
As far as the lyrical content, look virtually anywhere and you’re guaranteed to find something along the lines of
Dig myself a hole, and fill it full of me, everyday I’m living everyday until I sleep for eternity (actual excerpt from “Dig Myself a Hole”). The entire album is like a raging river of stupidity that flows like the Great Mississippi itself. The only song that rules is “Drink Drank Drunk” and that’s because it’s a paradoxically goofy-but-heavy song obviously about getting hammered which I could imagine myself having some good laughs to when actually getting hammered. The only problem is I can’t figure out if Hellyeah intended for it to be a joke or serious. Probably the latter.
There’s a little more of everything, but still not enough of anything. Vinnie Paul is jamming’ like it’s 1990, but everything else just sucks. After hearing yet another album of highly-concentrated trash, my patience has run out. With everything I’ve said in mind, I hope the boys prove me wrong in the future and restore some level of dignity to their reputations….but for now, I expect fiery-hell to freeze over before it happens. While
Band of Brothers may be marginally better than earlier releases, it is still but another chapter in Hellyeah’s saga of failure.
