Blocked Minds

...then you might like them even less now. This is up there with one of the worst second album follow ups that came right after a band's first output. Never mind having a gradual evolution or padding before the fall, like Metallica at least did to us. At this point, they might as well have changed their band name, moved, or purposely forget to tell their friends and relatives that this is still actually them. Bands coming out with a reunion album years later don't exactly count to what I mean because that happens more frequently due to the significant space between releases. I'd even take Mutilator over this any day, who comes from the same area in Brazil and did a similar deed with 'Into the Strange,' and I'm not even all that fond of that release. It didn't help that some of the line-up was rearranged. But then again this is most likely the same ol' drill that happens: band forms, records demos, label gets interested, first output is released. This process is typically years in the making. So I'm sure they changed some of their viewpoints around probably even by the time the first was released, or with the rearrangement of the band, lesser members' ideas were now a consideration. I'm also reasoning that these guys were mostly young when they first recorded songs in '85, and then surprisingly grew a conscious pretty fast from their over-the-top days to here in '88, and decided for some reason or another to subject themselves to this sad piece of...frisby, desk weight, firewood for the homeless.

Yes, this is still metal, but comes across as metal without major direction or purpose at the end; like riding through a tunnel where the scenery is barren and the worst that happens is your hair unintentionally gets blown around. The band has thicker and somewhat crunching guitars, so they didn't become a glam band or something like that. This has plenty of palm muting and a consistent mid-paced momentum, though more on the side of a safe sounding thrash beat. There's also some simpler structured solos that come about every now and again, and this is free from ballads or acoustic passages. You can exclude them from most '80s band-wagon cliches. 'Blocked Minds' just feels musically mechanical, with the drums setting a pace and becoming nearly background fodder at times, as the guitars spout one to many simplistic throwaway metal riffs that just get by. This is essentially stripped of any major rebellious tendencies in attitude or with their song writing that hopefully would at least cause one individual to hold a picket sign. Yeah, they threw a big "Up Yours!" to anyone who was into their earlier period, but that's as far as that goes.

While the underlying music isn't so offensive that I'd want to instantly leave the room if someone else was jamming this out for some reason or another, though if it was continuously playing or if I didn't decide to review it and warn others tracking this down, yes. However, the riffs start to look better and better compared to the vocals; like an okay chick just got a whole lot prettier standing next to her ugly friend. The vocals aren't just a throw off and something to get used to like the first time a lot of people hear Voivod. They miss the mark and are so feeble sounding that if I were a Cogumelo executive I would have literally tried every which way to whenever to void that contract a.s.a.p.; probably a blood relative or getting a tax break by putting this out is my guess, because they normally had a consistency. I'm honestly not even sure what they are precisely going for, maybe he wants to make up his own "special" voice, is influenced by some obscure band that escapes me for good reasons, or his impersonation instead of sounding close to another frontman that I would know just misses the target by such a caliber that it comes off as an embarrassing parody. At times, it actually sounds in a way similar to Rozz Williams from Christian Death with that higher toned, almost sassy or whiny voice, that only someone like Rozz Williams himself had any luck at pulling off. Showing how much Holocausto wanted to change themselves, bar changing their harsher name, it isn't that far fetched to think they included goth or post-punk, or even less hostile punk to their vocal influences to where other metal bands threw out the notion and picked something more violent, at least made it darker, or did a better job at refining it to their vocal range like Dorsal Atlantica did. His clear running over the English language didn't help. And I can't say that experimentation aided Holocausto either at this point when both shoe laces are undone and they're ready to strut forward.

This release is so off sounding from their prior days that if I had half a guess, I'd say this is what some of the members (excluding the original guitarist and drummer) wanted to go for all along and the way they sounded before was just a following of those other two mentioned or what the other Minas Gerais bands like Sepultura, Chakal, Mutilator or Sarcofago were doing with their small scene. If that sentiment was the reverse because they all started roughly around the same time, I'd scratch my head to blisters thinking Holocausto should have just simply attempted to make an improved album along the same lines, like how Sepultura changed it up with their second full length. Instead, here we get a vocalist that is about as energetic and high-toned enough to be mistaken for a male impersonating a female cheerleader with his off-key, soft-voiced, valley-girl-swagger non-sense; a real tongue nullifier. Exaggerated bashing aside, the music is fairly pedestrian as well. Essentially the kind of tunes that look both ways before crossing the road and still can't manage that without someone holding their hand. Where's the risk? I know they changed their outlook and might have gotten ostracized by some, but this just feels like a "spite" album like Vulcano's 'Who Are the True?' was to contemporary extreme metal bands around the time. Don't look here for something against the grain, even for guilty entertainment, or even for shreds of anything else. You can picture their 'spite' turning into 'spittle' and eventually a projectile of 'spit' into whoever's face is nearest. I honestly can't even direct someone who would potentially like the change of style and direction enough to track this down, figuring it would be appealing to at least someone who's easy, but no I can't. And I'll hopefully save you and myself some time: the other albums in the '90s are either just as lackluster like the next one, or dropped metal playing all together like the one after that.