One Bullet Left

One Bullet Left, the latest and greatest (and most accessible, too) release from one of Italy's melodic death metal acts. It's a strange blend of synth-pop beats and a heavy vocal style that isn't too far off Raintime, but considering the nationalities, it would explain why.

To begin with, this release sounds like it should be played in some dodgy-ass nightclub somewhere, very much 1980's in mannerism and structure. The music itself seems to have been done before, but perhaps not as well as it has been here. With that in mind, this isn't TOO bad a release. It was just a let down by most of the songs blending into one 45-50 minute drivel on a cd with a vocalist who seems incapable of singing in tune for extended periods of time. With hat being said, there's always going to be worse vocalists, like the chappy from Human Error, Ollie Sykes, or Justin Bieber to name but a few among many.

This seems to be just a selection of repeated song structures with different synth beats as the base to most songs. "A Second Life" and "It's A Long Night" are just a couple of songs that sound very similar, albeit with different beats. The benefits to this is that they're recognizable. The drawbacks: they sound the same.

As far as hooks in this genre goes, they seem to have gone for the catchy musical side with harsh vocals just about throughout the entire album, and when he isn't doing harsh, he shouldn't be singing at all. It just sounds dodgy.

Instrumentally, where they're lacking they make up with the synth beats, which is fine to a point, then it just goes too far. The guitars are clearly there to back up the beats. The way I'm describing this must seem like it's a dubstep song with all the beats, and I apologize for this.

The best song on this album has to be "No Remorse", but it does sound eerily like Skillet's "Hero" at times, which can't be good considering the gap between the genres.