Collision

Collision by C-187 is a largely despised album, and I get why: it's basically bizarre in every way. The concept of the band came from Mameli watching lots of episodes of COPS (yes, the long-running reality show that follows police officers as they bust bad dudes). The album was released in 2007, long after the heyday of COPS, and long after the trend of suburban kids romanticizing North American street gang life had died down. The album features three of the biggest names in old school progressive death metal but is, for the most part, a groove metal affair. But wait, on top of being an outdated gang life-obsessed groove metal record, it also has a lot of Al Di Meola-esque jazz elements.

Like I said, this record is truly bizarre.

BUT, all that said, I don't think this is a bad record. I actually think there is a ton to like here, and I still genuinely enjoy this record after many listens over several years.

Musically, I love everything that is going on here. I like that the riffs use jazzy, angular chords that you will not hear on virtually any other metal record -- Mameli eschews typical power chords in favour of 7th chords, tritones, and all manner of other layered, nuanced note combinations, and for someone like myself who has heard metal dudes hit power chords for 30-odd years, it's refreshing as all hell to hear someone mix it up like this. The guitar solos are just as weird and uncommon in metal, and done superbly -- you can hear that Mameli isn't some hack just making weird shapes with his fingers on his guitar neck or doodling chromatically. He has clearly studied jazz elements, understood them, and incorporated them into his writing here. Not only is that unique and impressive, it also just sounds really cool, which is ultimately the most important thing.

Tony Choy and Sean Reinert do fantastic jobs in their respective departments. Tony is locked in like always, but also makes effective use of the spaces in Mameli's riffs for lots of cool little bass licks and accents. Sean knows when to get weird and jazzy and play some insane and cool syncopated rhythms, when to just groove, and when to toss in 16th note double bass and make shit heavy.

All the instruments sound amazing. They're all bright and clear yet have plenty of body. The whole thing is mixed perfectly too. This record just about has it all!...

...

...But I guess we need to address the vocals and lyrics.

Yes, these both largely suck. The lyrics would be juvenile no matter how old the author was, but I just did the math and Mameli was around 40/41 when he wrote this record. That's absolutely shameful. "Murda"? "Cruisin' for a Bruisin"? Good grief. Also, to write about this kind of stuff with zero firsthand experience is just embarrassing. A 40-yr old Dutch man pretending to be a 20-yr old hood in Los Angeles. Woof.

The vocals don't ENTIRELY suck, but they do mostly suck. I've actually always wondered why Mameli chose Tony Jelencovich to sing on this record when his voice doesn't match the street gang rhetoric he is, ahem, "spitting." Occasionally he has some decent yells or grunts but most of his 'extreme' vocals sound lame and wannabe/tryhard-ish. His quasi-rapping is abysmal. His singing is on-key but the tone of his voice is just weird, nasally, thin, and once again simply does not suit the sound of a street gang-inspired record.

But you know what? Despite the shortcomings, I still like this album. The music really does it for me, and with his thick accent I can't make out what Jelencovich is saying a lot of the time anyway. As long as I don't pay too much attention to the singing or album cover, I can still find a lot to enjoy here.