|
| |
|
|
|
We all know about the drama behind Nightrage when it comes from the lineup change of three consecutive albums with three different singers. Well in 2007 Nightrage featured Jimmie Strimmell in A New Disease is Born as their replacement for Tomas Lindberg who took the place for vocals in Nightrage’s first two albums. In A New Disease is Born, Jimmie was a promising vocalist for Nightrage, and A New Disease is Born was a promising album for the melodic death metal genre itself. Jimmie took on harsh vocals and clean mostly harsh though. Well after some time of the release of A New Disease is Born both Jimmie and Alex Svenningson (drums) left Nightrage after a year being in the band to form Dead by April. Right after both members joined the band to replace Tomas Lindberg (vocals) and Fotis Benardo (drums) who left Nightrage a year prior to A New Disease is Born.
Well the genre of Dead by April is pop-metal, it may kind of be iffy to look into just because of the word pop and then metal. In this case with Dead by April it sounds like it could be on the same radio station as Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Now let’s come back to Jimmie’s vocals in Nightrage they were harsh and they sounded good along with some of his choruses that featured his clean vocals which weren’t annoying. Now back to the Dead by April’s vocal style. Harsh vocals here and there, but damn the clean vocals are too poppy for anyone to deal with especially for someone that loves to listen to Nightrage’s A New Disease is Born. With these putrid clean vocals in Dead by April I really don’t see how this is called metal in any sense of the genre; it should be called nu-metal more or less because it has a lot of pop influences in it with a few metal influences here and there.
If you really want to know what Jimmie sounds like in Dead by April here it goes it may shock you. Jimmie has the same vocal style as Lauri Ylönen from The Rasmus but a few harsh vocals in every other song which doesn’t make anything up with his clean vocals. Jimmie’s ratio of harsh to clean 1/5 of the time. Even though I highly dislike his vocals in Dead by April I’ll give it to him that he didn’t use any auto-tunes all that much (he used some auto-tunes in a few songs but they were short lived). Instrumentally as it goes the drums are average they just kept a beat nothing too special. The bass is hardly noticed with all of these synthesizers and some piano riffs in about every song which becomes very aggravating through the listen. With the guitars not very creative at all nothing special about them at all either so I’m not going to bother to talk about them. But there is a solo in Stronger. Even the lyrics aren’t written well at all. The lyrical direction is a huge juxtaposition in comparison to A New Disease is Born with the lyrics in that album.
With the better songs off of Dead by April (the album) are Losing You, Angels of Clarity, and Stronger. All three songs are average but could have been a lot better if Jimmie didn’t decide to use his poppy clean vocals. Especially with songs like Angel of Clarity and Stronger both songs started out real heavy but they ended up being somewhat disastrous with Jimmie’s putrid clean vocals. Now with Losing You the song itself is very catchy there are harsh and clean vocals throughout the song and it does become worth the listen if you can get past the first lyrical verse. Now with the rest of the album there is no doubt that there is a shit load of crappy songs like “Trapped” and “Sorry For Everything” (which plays out very ironically with the song name and the track number). Ha-ha made a joke. Anyways the other songs try to give the rest of the album the “metal” feel with a few harsh vocal parts in about 80% of the album. But even then it’s very short lived (I mean the harsh vocals). Another bad part album is that most of it sounds like singles. These songs that sound like singles cost the album the smoothness of the transition into a next song.
To my conclusion of Dead by April (the album) is don’t even bother with it especially if your a metal head. The best songs off the album in case you happen to be curious is Losing You, Stronger, and Angel of Clarity.
| other reviews of this album |
pizzamachine (2.5)
worthy of indifference and nothing more....
silentstar (2.5)
Mediocre debut album; overproduced vocals, generic lyrics, decent instrumentation, predictable synth...
|
|
Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
My 5th review, tell me how I did.
Btw the album was a huge disappointment for my expectations that is.
| | |
Yep I'm definitely staying the fuck away from this.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
Do it can it will disappoint you. I would've given it an awful but there were a few good parts.
| | |
You've got quite a few grammatical issues and some run on sentances in your review. Contents is okay, although you spend (IMO) too much time talking about things that aren't this album. Structure needs work.
| | |
Agreed. That's why I told you to just take out the first paragraph completely. It's pointless.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
Alright thanks on the tip I'll fix any run on sentences I see.
Plus you need to fix your grammar on sentences (just a pointer not trying be rude).
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
Alright what's wrong with the first paragraph? How is it pointless, I was giving a brief back ground on Dead by April.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
What?
| | |
oh c'mon the album wasn't bad, just rediculouslyaveragetothepointoftearsofboredom
| | |
Dead by April. How is that what they came up with? They could have named themselves "Pile of Shit"
and it would have been better than "Dead by April"
so, in conclusion: Fucking terrible band name
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
Ya someone voted. Thanks for the pos
| | |
Not as bad as you make it seem
| | |
I used to nail this bitch to Losing You and What Can I say?
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
It might grow on me(not guaranteeing though), but it's just to poppy sounding for any one that heard it was melodic death metal off of last.fm like me.
| | |
A 1.5 seems too steep, whether you agree or not, this album is catchy, and should deserve a higher rating for that. A 2.5 seems fair to me.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
I'll admit it's catchy, but most of it didn't sit right with me.
| | |
SAY "WELL" AGAIN
| | |
good writing advice direct from the source, xeno
xeno, you're a good writer. Keep pumpin' out those reviews.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off
Thanks for the advice
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
I have to disagree with alot of this. The singer has a very nice clean voice, and that is a rare gift to have. To not make use of it, or to use it as infrequently as he did in Nightrage is a tragedy and a waste. I agree that they don't necessarily do anything unique on their instruments and structuring, but the sound they have created is among some of the absolute catchiest metal I've ever heard, and I have to attribute that to his clean vocals.
I agree that the clean sections definitely have a more heightened pop influence than others in the genre, but that's why they stand out in the sea. I think it's a bit much to say they could be on the radio alongside Lady Gaga and company. They may not be considered "heavy" to seasoned metal fans, but to the general mainstream public of everyday top 40 music listeners, this would be WAY too heavy to be met with mainstream success.
It really comes down to how much "catchy" you like in your metal. If you like all of your music to be comandeered by harsh vocals like Dark Tranquility, then of course you're going to hate this. But if you like a balance of both worlds (catchy and harsh), then it really doesn't get much better than this. It is extremely well-done catchy cookie-cutter metalcore.
One final thought, being a musician myself, no band in their right mind would view an entire album of "songs that sound like they could all be singles" as a bad thing, because that means they are all very good songs, and nothing is of filler quality. Even Opeth wouldn't look at their album and say, "you know what, I think some of these songs are too good. We need to go back and make them not as good so the album flows better."
Considering the fact that Angela Gossgow quoted the average yearly earnings of Arch Enemy around $19,000 - $24,000, I wouldn't be surprised if Dead By April barely break even, as they are scarcely accessible from a media standpoint. Everyone has bills to pay and families to support. An album full of single-grade songs is a blessing to any band.
| | | |
|
| |
