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 An experiment gone wrong, or a declaration for fans to shut the hell up?- |
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Macabre is widely credited as being one of the first bands to play a style that is, or at least was the inspiration, for the Death Metal style, an act that would make this band a household name of infamy among all walks of Metal fandom over the years. Every release has been a solid effort that fans and media warmly embraced. Sure, the band hasn't released many full-lengths to this date, but there's been a decent number of EPs throughout the years, but for the most part these releases never necessarily strayed from the typical path of mixing Thrash with their brand of Death Metal and some Grindcore elements when needed, all with that signature vocal approach Macabre made famous while writing about noted murderers throughout history. However, Grim Scary Tales, the band's fifth full-length and long awaited follow up to 2003's smash success Murder Metal, finds the band changing gears dramatically and, in many ways, sees the band experimenting more with their sound. But, do they take it too far? Grim Scary Tales starts off mischievous enough with the typical Macabre Death Metal set-up on "Locusta", though the song starts off with a more epic atmosphere to it that the rest of the song manages to live up to, giving off a nice Thrash atmosphere to the tracks with the hammering and catchy music before going into a technical sounding Death Metal/Grindcore faster pace, all complimenting the opening nicely, but almost immediately things start to change up. "Nero's Inferno" comes off more as a flat out Italian heritage based song set in a period that is much later then the killer Nero they depict in the song, coming off more as what one may classify as an Italian Folk song based solely on the roots of the music, with a suiting French clean vocal approach that has more of a French nasally voice and cheap accent. "The Black Knight" follows immediately with the same formula, but is much catchier and comes off as a bit of a restrained mixture of Death Metal and Thrash ideas with blast beats thrown in to a spoken word performance with simple catchy clean singing vocals in the chorus. Oddly enough, this track is the most infectious song on the release, while "Nero's Inferno" is an acquired taste. But, that's not all for the experimentation on the album. The band also takes on another cover track for their career, which happens to be the Venom classic "Countess Bathory", and it's a surprisingly well done and catchy rendition of the track. The only let down is that, while the song is just great no matter what, and perhaps one of the best composed metal songs of all time, it just leaves the listener wanting more from Macabre, especially knowing how well they can chronicle murderous deeds after their Dahmer album and the meticulous lyrics they presented on it, leaving this cover to feel like a bit of a hole in the track list for an original track that could easily have been as good by Macabre standards. There's also "Mary Ann" which takes on more of an early Doom or Stoner Rock sound meets Folk Rock, and "The Blood Benders" is essentially just a slightly faster Country song. Both of these tracks are definitely interesting to hear, mostly due to how big a departure they are to the original Macabre sound, but they just feel rather uninspired, though the latter is a little more enjoyable in the long run. There are a number of traditional Macabre tracks throughout the release, though not all of them really have the same impact that the band has spoiled us with on previous albums. For the most part, it feels as if the band is trying to be more atmospheric then heavy and catchy at times, and while they succeed at setting up this dark and grim feeling to the songs, it doesn't always work in the song's favor and just feels like the songs are lacking. "Dracula" is one of those songs, which isn't that bad, but the guitars really focus more on atmosphere there anything else, and it seems to sacrifice a nice heaviness and edge to the song with the chords really take over with some haunting chords instead of continue to sound crushing and faster paced. The track's ambient sound effects at the end seem to bleed into "The Big Bad Wolf" a bit, which poses the question of "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" in the sound of the old sung nursery rhyme while the lyrical content is spliced with material from the fable of Little Red Riding Hood. While Grim Scary Tales is far from a bad album, the songs just don't really stand out and often feel a little bland, though far from generic. Many of them are clearly experimental songs to reflect a specific atmosphere, as well as the overall feeling of being somewhat related to bed time stories and nurseru rhymes, and for that this release really stands out. But, to sit back and listen to tracks like "Lizzy Borden", which is based off the old nursery rhyme involving this famous killer, and not feel that it was a little too simple, not as heavy as it should, and all around more like filler material is not uncommon. In fact, once you reach "Mary Ann", the album seems to really lose substance, and the songs just don't give the impression that the band really put a lot of effort into the recording. Of the closing songs, the only one that really feels like there's a good amount of energy to it is "The Kiss of Death", though the chorus to it feels really close to "Bella the Butcher", just with a much deeper, gutteral approach to the vocals. And that's a problem that plagues this release greatly. Most of these songs don't seem to be too authentic for the band, coming off more as material for an album the band didn't really want to do, but just did it to shut their fans up. The album has it's moments, and some songs like "The Black Knight" and "The Big Bad Wolf" really stand out on the release, but outside a handful of tracks, it's nothing all that special. For a change of pace, Grim Scary Tales is far from a bad attempt to change things up, but it left behind a lot of what the band has perfected over the years in their material. In the end, Grim Scary Tales actually comes off as a great idea themewise, but the execution and experimentation holds it back greatly, as it finds itself lacking in many areas including catchiness, heaviness, and, sadly, a fulfilling ending, as "The Sweet Tender Meat Vendor" closes the album out nicely, but it's just not a strong enough track to say it was worth going through the many rather bland tracks that came before it. |
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Digital review copy of this release provided by: Willowtip Records and Earsplit PR
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