Review Summary: What Horrors Await indeed. Uninspiring mediocre death metal at best.
Here is another album stumbled upon because of the interesting artwork and claims of “great old school death metal”. “What Horrors Await” starts off with a decent track
Worst Case Scenario but quickly goes downhill with
The Unstoppable. The band’s sound does share some similarities with some classic death metal bands like Bolt Thrower and Entombed but imitating those great bands takes some skill. The first thing that really annoyed me about the band is their horrible lyrics. Take
The Unstoppable for example has a ridiculous chorus:
“You can't stop me, a rolling death machine, come on and stop me, psychotic murderer, you cannot stop me, I'm the unstoppable!” Not only are the lyrics atrocious but the vocals are extremely boring. Think Amon Amarth but not anywhere as much variation in pitches. The start of the song reminds me of some lame, half assed thrash metal song that turns into a slowed down, uninteresting slow motion stomp with those uninspired lyrics thrown over. It was enough of an embarrassment that the first time I heard this song in my car that I actually turned it down in disappointment and disgust. “What Horrors Await” indeed.
I normally wouldn’t criticize a death metal band for their lyrics; after all, most of their lyrics are not to be taken seriously in the first place. Many of the quality death metal bands can write interesting lyrics that have great imagery or are thought provoking in some way. This band can’t even write half interesting lyrics about war. Not only are the lyrics almost laughable, the delivery is wince inducing at times. One of the most memorable cringe inducing moments was during
Two Faced :
“How was I supposed to know, you were a, lying snake? Just when I had turned my back, you where there wielding a knife! Two faced- two faced disgrace!” I realize the band is not trying to be groundbreaking in any way but with lyrics like that you might as well write nu-metal.
The attempt to rhyme the lyrics is hilarious for example on
Speak the Truth there is the though provoking
“You've lied to me, your final lie, Not giving in, not gonna cry“What, The, Hell? Do they want to sound like a joke? Then on
“Exit Wounds” which features some Pantera-esque riffs and grooves with some of most stupid lines and vocals on the album. The production is not a huge problem but it sounds a little too clean for a “classic” sound. To top this off a lot of the riffs sound recycled from previous songs. There are not many solos to look forward to either and the ones that do show up are not even worth mentioning. Some of the songs display some pretty nice drumming but that is about the only positive I can really give this album. They cover
“Invincible Force” by Destruction and do not utterly fail; it is a huge step above from their own material. Even if the lyrics and vocals do not turn you away from this band, the boring, uninspired songwriting will.
There is no reason to settle for this less than mediocre album when you could be listening to actual classic death metal like Dismember, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. Although not completely rooted in classic death metal, bands like Gorod, Ulcerate, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Behemoth all have releases this year that are miles ahead of this album. I would recommend Hail of Bullets release from last year,
“Of Frost and War”, if you really need a taste of new “classic” death metal.
