Shock the World

Cruella were among some of the more obscure hidden speed metal gems that I discovered several months ago. Vengeance Is Mine was pretty original, although at times rather sloppy, with a powerful and wailing vocalist and a rockin' speed metal-ish vibe comparable to Riot's Thundersteel it was definitely a fun and consistent album. A year later the band released this ... milking their former sound and style while going practically nowhere with it. Most of these songs sound incomplete and this time around, those amateurish mistakes don't help at all, it almost sounds like they recorded this thing in one single shot.

The biggest thing here that nearly destroys the album entirely, is the drummer Dave Hval taking up the vocals as well. Compared to the previous Rick Nolan off their debut, this guys is just downright terrible. I mean sure I guess he does a fair job handling the singing along with drumming ... but are you kidding me? Both guitarist Roger d'Carlo and bassist Rob Conrad couldn't have done better than this? Half the time you can't even understand what Hval's speaking and throughout the majority of the album he has this constant insanely boring monotonous style of singing. The vocals are just downright annoying.

Mr. Potato head
Where your eyes?
Mr. Potato head
Nice disguise

You've got to be kidding me, what the hell is this song? I'm all for goofy tracks every once and awhile but damn, this is just one of those that'll annoy the hell out of you. Not to mention the actual song doesn't even sound metal. An instant skip. On the first track they've got some distortions with the instruments, basically it sounds like the band has just turned on their speakers and are ready for a practice session. It's really embarrassing to hear and doesn't add to the music at all, if they were going for that. A few tracks later after some interesting riffs and solo's here and there, we hit Living Death. Wait a minute, did Hval transform into something else or is this someone else randomly singing? Well, either Hval actually tried here or this other guy actually does a slightly better job singing, not to mention this track isn't half bad. Shock The World ah the s/t track itself ... oh damn, it's Hval back on vocals! "Behuund You Behunnd You ... That's the nature of da business!" I just can't take the singing here seriously at all. Next up is Jim Jones! Who would've thought a track with such a title would be one of the best? It's decent. The final track is a mess not even worth describing.

A random mess, that's what this entire album is. This is something that should've stayed in the garage and probably shouldn't have went anywhere beyond their families knowledge. How this can fail so much compared to their debut is beyond me but, replacing or losing vocalist Rick Nolan here was definitely the sharpest death blow to the band. My recommendation, check out Vengeance Is Mine and don't even hesitate to skip this one.