Review Summary: Just retire already.
Unden!able is a loud, messy, thrown together album by Hellyeah. After all, Hellyeah is a loud, messy, thrown together super group. Combining the vocalist of Mudvayne, drummer of Pantera, and a member of Nothingface, Hellyeah churns out mostly passable metal beats.
Unden!able, according to guitarist Tom Maxwell, was designed to be a ‘dark and moody’ stamp in Hellyeah’s expanding discography. The quest for substance brought us
Unden!able. Riddled with muddy distorted guitars, rough vocals, and rolling drums, Hellyeah’s aim is to rile audiences with a hard shell and cheesy appeal.
Unden!able’s biggest fault is unoriginality. It’s a very noticeable flaw when listening to the album in its entirety. Tom Maxwell, Hellyeah’s rhythm guitarist, stated one of the album’s goals was to be ‘dark and moody.’ He continued to state the album was going to, “have a lot of stuff they never tried before,” implying some experimentation.
Unden!iable doesn’t stray too far from the norm. The core sound is basically a melting pot of Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch, and any other surface level metal band of the 2000’s. The album’s formula of using enticing lead riffs into a barrage of triplets and exploding into a huge chorus is overkill. ‘Blood Plague’ does the metal cliché of starting with a bell tone beat and diving into a deep groove. The rest of the song sounds like ‘Faithless’ by Black Veil Brides. ‘Leap of Faith’ swims closer to what the album’s initial goal was. It has a reverbed melodic intro that leads into a post-grunge-ish verse. It’s not really atmospheric, yet it tries to be. The lack of subtlety kills the vibe.
The album’s laziness carries over to lyrics. “Be undeniable; my middle fingers are up because I've got 'em'. If you're tired of being denied be undeniable and dot your is on the bottom,” are the chorus for ‘Be Unden!able.’ Chad Gray is no poet, but I know they can do better than this. ‘Live or Die’ chimes in later in the album to deliver more of the same. “Trust or treason, honesty or a lie. Find in some reason, do we live life or die? Love or hate, worship or deny. Pleasure or pain; do we live life or die,” tries so hard to be thought provoking, but the effort comes off as sophomoric. No new concepts, ideas, or deliveries are even toyed with here. It’s almost a chore to continue listening until the end. Their cover of Phil Collins’ ‘I Don’t Care Anymore’ was the album’s selling point. They throw in a hollow drum intro with a messy lead that leads into a spacey atmospheric rocker. This is probably the only song in the album that shows even the slightest effort. The song then throws in some random leads from “Dimebag” Darrell to bank on Pantera fans. The leads sound out of place as is. They don’t add anything to the song or album overall.
At the very least
Unden!able is something to listen to. It’s not an album I’d recommend or listen to again, but what else is there to do? It’s a cheesy, lazy, and boring metal album. No amount of top secret “Dimebag” riffs will change my mind.
Unden!able is stereotypical to the point of comedy. It’s almost like the band felt they had to make an album, so they threw one together as quick as possible. Cashing in on 80’s covers, “Dimebag” outtakes, and a dad-rock edge made this album a joke. It’s almost impossible to set the bar lower in quality. It’s just so effortless in everything it tries to do. I’m not even sure what the album was about. The term “metal album” is basically its only description! I honestly want to know how people enjoyed this album. I don’t get the point, and I’m pretty sure Hellyeah doesn’t either.
Standout Tracks
N/A
