Review Summary: With their third album, Kublai Khan puts out their best work so far.
The third album from Kublai Khan sees them operating under RiseRecords. The quality of recording is far superior to the previous albums', with strong guitar riffs and chugs as well as clear vocals from Matt Honeycutt.
The vocals are the best part of the album, I would say. Matt mixes screams with growls to good effect, giving an intense choppy performance. His style brings to mind a dog barking, rather than the high-rasps and drawn-out screeches typically seen on RiseRecords and the genre as a whole.
Each song is short, just under or over 3 minutes. The longest song is 3 and a half minutes, allowing for easy listening. The percussion hits hard and the riffs are just
so catchy, if simple.
Many topics are covered here, such as police brutality on "True Fear", the existence (or lack) of God on "B.C", and the murder of a family member on "8 Years". The lyrics were nothing special to me, but they were never terrible.
The only issues I have with the album are that the songs sound very similar to one another. Similar riffs, similar vocal patterns, with nothing new to change it up. That isn't a big problem, as every song here is great.
"Antpile" is a strange song, being an instrumental with a catchy guitar if not for the random obscenities spouted throughout. Perhaps the song is about anger.
And this album IS angry. There are no clean vocals, no soft moments, and the only time a song slows down is to build tension before kicking in with a breakdown, and those silences often utilise distant distorted screaming (as seen on "The Hammer") or to give a great drum solo (as seen on "B.C.").
On Nomad, Kublai Khan brings nothing new to the genre, but they do what they do very well, creating a heavy, easy and fun listen that will probably draw you back again and again.
FAVORITES:
BC
Belligerent
The Hammer
8 Years
LEAST Favorites:
Salt Water
River Walker
True Fear
