Rage

Yeah, the guys’ career has been constantly evolving around these extreme emotions; they’ve been recycling them throughout, trying to see which one would fit them better at that particular moment in time. Not that they are radically different from each other; in fact, they all hail from the same family, the unhappy one that is.

The way it seems to me, there would never be a time when the band would feel happier and satisfied, their album-titles nicely reflecting the seeping feelings underneath; not even after Gary Golwitzer, the emblematic vocalist from the first two instalments, has returned. The presence of too much wrath/anger/rage has never been a sign of fearlessness, and the guys obviously have some hidden fears which may have been addressed, more or less adequately, on the album reviewed here.

Just when one felt happy with the more classic-based sound from the preceding effort, erasing the bad memories from the terrible “Wrath” EP, the guys decide to mess it up… why? I doubt this had been Golwitzer’s idea, to bring back some of the modern post-thrashy non-senses from said EP, but the way the man performs here is an indication that it mustn’t have taken too long for his colleagues to convince him that this should be the right way as his newly acquired dispassionate semi-clean, mid-ranged baritone is nothing like his piercing high-strung exploits of old.

In other words, Golwitzer doesn’t shine, not at all, neither do his comrades who try to juggle between rowdier, thrashier remnants from the preceding album like "Draw Blood" and the appropriately-titled "Tension on High", and tepid clumsy exercises in 90’s groove like "What You Crave" and the seriously anti-climactic semi-ballad "My Rage", the supposed title-track that drags a series of uneventful alternative post-thrashers after it, the very anti-climax achieved on the listless balladic idyll "Mother's Hell". The Motorhead cover of… let’s see now who’ll guess correctly… but of course “Ace of Spades”, (don’t ever expect “Killed by Death”!) could pass for a relatively positive occurrence, faithfully executed, logically without any rousing highlights.

There simply can be no any highlights on a recording of the kind, an inexplicable hesitation between two styles especially when one of those doesn’t fit the band at all… and without one of their major assets, Golwitzer’s characteristic wails, completely missing there’s not much the delivery can hold onto. Having in mind that the core of the band, the guitarist Scott Nyquist and the other Gary, Modica, the bass player are here it’s a full-on mystery how the guys can sound so artificial and uninspired. I can understand if they didn’t have a fairly strong discography a part of which is none other than the colossal “Nothing to Fear”, before that; are they afraid to try some full-fledged classic metal in the new millennium? For a change? They shouldn’t be cause this new identity search they’ve embarked on recently has been nothing short of painful so far, and would hardly help them vent out all this anger/rage/wrath.

“Wrath!”, I hear my dog adding from the other room. Yeah, angry people, angry animals, it’s not very safe, this world of ours… on the other hand, these emotions can be very productive, can work miracles I’ve heard, literally; no kidding… in other words, I choose to bet on the band’s next instalment, without fear; especially if it gets released under the title “Fury”… or “Frenzy”.