Review Summary: Yelling at you like your wife!
With their name, the Butcher Babies show clearly what their influence is : The Plasmatics and their female singer Wendy O. Williams. Needless to say that their live performance were full of provocations as they are known to perform without shirts and just tape on their tits. This and the fact that their music is very Nu Metal has made people have doubts about their credibility in the Metal community. If you know why they named themselves like that and why they performed with their clothes off, you'll understand that it is more of a tribute than a way to be known. The band consists of two female singers (Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey), the guitarist of Amen (Henry Flury), the bassist of Azdachao (Jason Klein) and the drummer of Scars Of Tomorrow (Chris Warner). So far they have released one EP and their latest LP Goliath came out in 2013.
Musically, this album sounds pretty much like a blend of Nu Metal and Thrash/Djent. The vocals are most of the time screaming with some clean vocals from time to time. This actually makes the listen more easy but also makes their metal sound a little bit generic. A perfect example would be Gasoline, with thrash vocals coupled with a Djent rhythm. Djent is omnipresent on this album, for example on The Deathsurround, the rhythm sounds like a Meshuggah song. One thing to note is that the addition of clean vocals and screams at the same time gives a good vibe to the songs. The energy delivered by both singers of Butcher Babies is really what makes the album great, they give everything and believe in what they are doing. This is especially shown in their closing song Axe Wound where they give you their heaviest, thrashiest screams followed by their clamest and cleanest vocals. This song is actually a great way to close this album.
What brings this album down is the lack of difference between the songs. Once you've heard half of the album, you won't get any surprises as the sound doesn't change much. On another note, the lyrics sometimes brings the song down. One example that ruined the listen for me was on the opener I Smell A Massacre. The rhythm sounds very thrashy but the lyrics of the chorus are really embarrassing : « No one's safe here/ Run for cover gooo »... The vocals too, although being ok for most of the listen become more and more annoying towards the end of the album. I can't explain why, probably because of the lack of long notes, but they aren't as enjoyable after a few listen as they were at the first listens.
All in all this a great effort for their first LP. Metal isn't an all men World and these angry girls are here to make a point. It is far from being an outstanding record, it isn't made to pretend to be technically awesome but it's simplicity (although it is not that simple) and energy will make you come back for another listen. It will also make you curious about what the next album will sound like and how will they improve their sound.
