Rehearsal is an EP that features three original tracks, as well as three cover track. Well, to say three cover tracks would be a bit insulting. Try more like nine, as one is a cover song medley. This release by A Perfect Murder shows that the band has matured musically, and that even better production qualities cannot save this band from completely butching Metallica.
"Trapped", "One Last Time" and "A Perfect Murder" are all pretty good tracks considering how bad the previous album, Unbroken, was. The music on here isn't as traditional, and much tighter, and the vocals are performed better as well. But, no matter how good these tracks are, they cannot make up the atrocity that is "Metal Up Your Ass", a medley of Metallica tracks such as "Master Of Puppets", "Damage Inc.", "The Four Horsemen", "Eye Of The Beholder", "Welcome Home" and "Blackened". A Perfect Circle tries to play the music like Metallica, but unfortunately fails miserably, as they cannot live up to the originals, leaving the sound of the songs open and very amateurish, especially with the shouting vocals pretty much oblitering any sense of enjoyment these covers leave due to being rather tone deaf against the music.
"Season In The Abyss" is, clearly, a Slayer cover, which isn't half bad actually. The song feels a bit hollow as well, mostly because of how the guitar sounds, but at least the vocalist isn't shouting from start to end like in "Metal Up Your Ass". Instead, he tries to harmonize with a rough, traditional thrash vocal style, only sounding as if he's some sort of metal patient singing the song from memory. "Black Sabbath" rounds out the cover tracks, as the band retitles this Black Sabbath track, which is actually "Paranoid". It's great to see the band didn't screw up the music for this song, because it's pretty impossible to do, but the vocals are absolutely horrendous, being off key with the music for the main verses, and having shouting during the chorus and completely ruining that.
In short, the only good parts of this release are the original tracks. The three cover songs on here are absolutely atrocious, and not even worth a second of your time. Sadly, these make up the majority of the recording, and the other three are nothing too spectacular that you have to drop everything and run out and buy this EP, or even the MP3s. Just know that these three originals show off some promise of the band actually focusing on their music and writing material that doesn't sound like everything else hardcore available on your local CD retailer's shelves.
|
