Review Summary: This album will just piss you off because of it's incredibly dull and repetitive material.
Death/thrash is not an easy genre to master. When you think about it, you can create death/thrash in many different ways. Old-school thrash mixed with modern death metal, you can take everything old-school style and etc. Bands like Centinex, De Lirium’s Order, Darkane, The Crown and many other bands have created amazing death/thrash. But even if you possess the right skills you are not guaranteed to success, The Crown for example released a lot of quality albums until they broke up. But there are also those bands that sound like *** that keeps on churning out albums, without knowing that no-one listen to their music.
Defleshed was one of those bands. During their time they released five full-length albums plus an EP and one live album. From the year the band was created (1991) they tried to bring mayhem with their death/thrash, but their last effort
Reclaim The Beat just makes you think: ''You got to be kidding me!'' Reclaim the beat contains everything that a death/thrash album
should not contain. A successful death/thrash release should be dynamic, extreme, fast, heavy, brutal and technical. This album is extremely dull, one-dimensional, ultra repetitive and it doesn't deliver anything that could be labelled as creative or even varied. The band made it simple... very simple. They made one song and recycled it 11 times; they actually included a cover of a Motley Crue song (Red Hot) that also sounds like trash.
Reclaim The Beat is boring in all aspects. The vocals in this album are a huge disappointment; some of you would probably expect some intense screaming, growling or shrieking. No, you're wrong, it sounds like the vocalist has swallowed something that got stuck in his throat. But to be more precise, it is some kind of strangled, semi-harsh vocal style (and it sounds terrible too). The band's lyric creativity is non-existent, every song has something to do with death, brain-washing, war and stuff like that. While the vocals and lyrics are horrible, the music makes things even more atrocious. Guitars, bass and drums are dull and uninspiring. The guitarist uses pathetic and simple hammer-on and pull-off techniques that are blended with some heavier power-chords. The bass is totally inaudible thanks to the thick guitars. Once you hear the bass you can't distinguish any notes, everything is just a down-tuned mush. And the drums at last, also a major flaw in this flawed album. All drum patterns are same in all songs, the patterns is some kind of blast-beat pattern. Some double bass kicking are included but this rarely occurs. Every song has the same recycled drum beats and it really gets on your nerves. Even if the album is plagued by a lot of things, there are at least two good things in this album. The sound production is good; at least it's above average. And good thing number 2 is the song ''Ignorance Is Bliss’’; this is the only good song that has a varied and forceful structure.
Well, there is nothing good that comes out of this album. Defleshed has probably released better albums but this one is an album that never should've been recorded. Reclaim The Beat contains nothing that will please the ears of a regular metal fan, except for the fans (if there are any). This album will just piss you off because of it's incredibly dull and repetitive material. Even if the album has a small amount of heaviness and good sound it doesn't compensate the album content. Metalheads, avoid this album at all costs, and if you want this, download or borrow it instead of buying it.
Positives
+ Ignorance Is Bliss
+ The album has at least a good sound
Negatives
- Extremely dull and boring death/thrash
- Repetitive
- A really flawed vocal performance
- Everything lacks in creativity and variation
- You can't reclaim any beat with music like this
Final rating: 1/5
