The Hallowed and the Heathen

With 2002's ultra-promising debut a Feast for the Fallen it looked like Send More Paramedics were ready to become Britains worthy sucessor to Xentrix and Sabbat; that is, before they followed it up with this steaming hunk of mediocrity. Oh no, it's not BAD, but coming from this band this album should leap out of your speakers grab you by the hair and smash your face repeatedly into solid objects.

This album is bookended by two keyboard driven peices of filler ("The Hallowed" and "The Heathen"), similar to Epulum off of the first album. It's not a bad way to start the mood I suppose, but there is absolutely no need for more then one peice of fille per album (note: this album contains 3, if you include I Can Feel Myself Rotting, a 30 second peice of crap). The opening track Bokor pretty much sums up the mediocrity of the album alltogether: instead of the fantastic riffwork coming from the first album (which contained more hooks than a tackle box) we get generic 80's Slayer-esque thrash riffs. Booooring. The lyrics are semi catchy (I! Bokor! Dealer! Of death!) but fail to have that "grab you by the nuts and force you to sing a long" power that old cuts like The Hordes do.

The best song on here might be Zombie Crew; it's a punk song, no bones about it, but the simple punk riff and fun lyrics that carry that song are FAR superior to anything else on this album. Cool chorus, nice gang vocals at the end; dumb but effective. Burning the Body and Easy Meat are fairly decent as well, but I still wouldn't stack them up against anything this band has previously done. Still, their riff work is the most enjoyable, and choruses the catchiest.

The rest? I can't really be bothered to remember the rest. Again, it's not crap, but aside from Zombie Crew nothing off this album is as face fuckingingly (yes that's a word) wonderful as the first album, so skip this one and try A Feast for the Fallen instead, which fucking rules.