The Other Side

I can enjoy Meanstreak the same way as Hysterica: to small doses. Not that there is anything notably off-putting about them, but the thing is, I wasn't much impressed by the album "Roadkill", and even if I like some of their songs, I don't like them that much.

What I like about this demo is that it's more thrash-influenced than the former record. On the song "Roadkill", which is the first Meanstreak track that people have heard of, the band showed a certain potential for high energy, angry thrash metal… but for only one song. This demo, however, is entirely following the "Roadkill" path. The band puts the mean in Meanstreak, he he.

This is a rather intense record, even in the power ballad, emphasis on power. Every track has much more energy than most of the first album, even though it's easier to keep the focus when you have only 4 songs. It gets angrier and angrier as songs go by. The lyrics go from "I'm a walking time bomb, I'm ready to exploooode !" to "Rubberneck ! You'd be much better dead !". Yep, while the first song is merely pissed off, the last one is basically justifying gratuitous crime. This is a rather extreme, senselessly aggressive song, especially from a band like this. That's what makes it great, because it's so cruel! It almost sounds like a villain song.

Although, this still isn't a perfect record. There's just a little something that keeps me from completely getting into it. Well, it may be because the other thrash songs, "Walking Time Bomb" and "Giant Speaks" aren't particularly good, and/or Bettina France's over-singing. But I think the main problem is that, even if Meanstreak are more enjoyable when they are thrashing and violent, they don't stay long enough in that direction. Does that mean they were an awful band that shouldn't have existed? No, even if I'm not their biggest fan, I can't really hate them. Did they have a talent, but never used it the right way, or did they have only the ability to make two good songs? I can't be sure.