Iwrestledabearonce Mature On New Album

Crazy as fuck metal band Iwrestledabearonce have always made interesting music. From heavy breakdowns and harsh vocals to gorgeously sung clean parts. From grindcore-infused metalcore one second, to techno breakdown or a country music interlude. The band have always mixed in random kinds of music like jazz, electropop, dubstep or country.
Their first two albums It's All Happening and Ruining It for Everybody were great and had tons of classic songs with ridiculous titles. "Karate Nipples," "Tastes Like Kevin Bacon" and "Danger in the Manger" are all great songs that keep the listener guessing the whole way through.
Former vocalist Krysta Cameron left the band during Warped Tour 2012 due to her pregnancy. this is the band's first problem. Their new singer, former Unicron vocalist Courtney LaPlante. While LaPlante's unclean vocals are similar to Cameron's, but her clean vocals are different.
She isn't a strong a clean singer as Cameron. While LaPlante is a good vocalist, she isn't as strong as Cameron was. The only thing she has on Cameron is that LaPlante's clean vocals are more clearly understood.
The band released their third album this month and it has great songs, but it isn't as good as their first two records. Late for Nothing may lack the kick of their first two albums, but that doesn't make it bad. On songs like "Firebees" and "Carnage Asada" the band are brutal. The songs are heavy and are sure to keep mosh pits open, but they lack the sheer insanity that made the band's earlier music shine.
LaPlante also has a more straightforward writing style. The band's lyrics have grown.
"You try too draw a straight line/ You make a circle every time," LaPlante sings during the chorus of "Thunder Chunky," one of the album's best songs.
There is also more emphasis on clean vocals. "Mind The Gap" is all clean vocals and "That's a Horse of a Different Color"  has mostly clean vocals.
There are no bad songs on the album and if this is your first Iwrestledabearonce album you've heard, maybe you'll really enjoy it. For all of the achievements this album makes, it's hard to compare it to the greatness that once was.

Deadlock Evolve On Sixth Album

Melodic Death Metal band Deadlock have always mixed harshness and beauty. Their previous albums have had both harsh male screams and clean female singing. Making each song more beautiful, yet aggressive. Sabine Scherer's clean vocals have been on each album she is clearly the highlight of the band.
On The Arsonist, Deadlock's sixth album and first after the departure of Johannes Prem, unclean vocalist, the band are very similar, yet different. While former bassist John Gahlert takes over on the unclean vocals, he isn't an upgrade. His screams aren't as strong or as stirring as Prem's were.
While the songs such as "The Great Pretender" and the title track are good and aggressive and quite catchy, they don't hold up to the best songs off the band's last two albums Manifesto and Bizaro World. "Dead City Sleepers" and the first single "I'm Gone" come close, but there is nothing as good as "Virus Jones" or "Martyr to Science."
The album's heaviest song "Darkness Divine" is up next. A fast, melodic death metal song that features Gahlert's best performance on the album as well as a slowed down chorus by Scherer. This song is followed by the electro-inspired "As We Come Undone,' a song that isn't very jarring and nothing to redeem the album until Scherer's clean chorus comes along to save the day.
The band slow things down on their best ballad ever, "Hurt." The song starts out as a piano filled ballad but in the second half becomes a rocker, very similar to "My Immortal" by Evanescence. The next song "The Final Storm" picks the pace of the album back up again. The song has a more gothic metal inspired chorus, Scherer doesn't even show up until the bridge. Even with that being the case, this is still an album highlight.
"Smalltown Boy" is a cover of the Bronski Beat song from the 80s. This cover is a good addition to the album and a great way to close things.
The bonus tracks on the album include the industrial influenced "My Pain," which also has a gothic metal feel to it. This song is a change for the band and they would do good to keep switching it up. The other two bonus tracks are dance remixes of the songs "Dead City Sleepers" and "As We Come Undone."
While this album is a great record, it isn't as great as the band's past two records. But the experimental tone of the album makes it a step up from their previous records.

Butcher Babies Rock Out On Debut Album

Heavy Metal band Butcher Babies released their mosh pit-inducing debut album Goliath last month. The album was preceded by the single "I Smell a Massacre" as well as the band's reputation for being a gimmick, thanks in part to fromwomen Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey. Harvey and Shepherd are known for performing close to naked, with only black duct tape X's covering their nipples. This took away from their credibility as musicians, but with Goliath, this changed. This record is so face meltingly good that no gimmick can undo the greatness of it.
Every song is a rocker and it shows off the duel vocalist's talents. Their screams recall other female fronted band such as Otep, Kittie, In This Moment, Arch Enemy and Straight Line Stitch, while their cleans recall In This Moment, Kittie and Eyes Set to Kill. Most of the clean vocals as well the more growled harsh vocals are done by Harvey and the more high pitched, In This Moment styled screams are done by Shepherd. The music is a mix of classic heavy metal and thrash metal.
The ladies mix in their clean vocals well with their harsh screams on songs like "Magnolia Blvd," "Grim Sleeper" and the single and best song on the album "I Smell a Massacre." However on the title track, which is one of the best songs, the ladies don't sing one clean note. Screaming aggressively over the metal as fuck guitars. This approach is quickly given up on "In Denial" in which the heavenly cleans of Harvey are heard again. Going on to "Give Me Reason" the ladies sound more like Otep than they have on previous songs. The band also rock hard on "The Mirror Never Lies," which like the other songs is heavy as can be. Harvey's cleans on the chorus of this song are perhaps the best cleans on the entire record.
The next song the slower "Dead Poet." Harvey's cleans are the most prominent vocals on the song. "The Deathsurround" is a sonically different song than the rest. The vocals are different here than on other songs. The album closes with a remake of the song "Axe Wound" from their self-titled 2012 EP.
This album is quite possibly one of the best metal albums of the year so far. Butcher Babies have proved that they are much more than a pair of pretty faces. Here's to hoping the band keep up with this for years to come.

Colette Carr Finally Releases Debut Album

Colette Carr released her debut album Skitszo, last month. The album was released as four EPs throughout the past year and then last month the entire album was released.
Carr's Ke$ha influenced brand of rap-pop mixes in many different types of music. There's the reggae influenced "Who Do You Think You Are," the rock influenced, "Told You So" which features pop-rocker Porcelain Black and the club influenced "Killswitch."
Carr's songs are either about partying, relationships or bragging. Her partying songs include the ABBA sounding "I Don't Wanna Go," "Mes Amis (We Can Party), and the Keane-sampling single "(We Do It) Primo," all of which are highlights.
Some of Carr's most endearing songs are her relationship songs. From the clubby "F16" to the rocking breakup anthem "Told You So" to the sad "Never Gonna Happen," Carr gets real with her lover, no matter what the occasion. "Why Are You Leaving?"and "Hearsay" are also good breakup songs. Then there's "Delusional," a song about Carr being creeped on by a delusional freak who according to Carr "whipped his dick out."
Then comes the third category of Carr's music, the classic hip hop bragging track. From the crazy "One By One" to the thumping "The Finest Things" and the E-40 assisted "Can't Touch This," Carr has her brag on 100.
While there are no bad songs on the album, there are simply too many songs on the album that sound too similar. Carr would do good to try to be a little more experimental.
While her album was just released Carr will be releasing a mixtape later on this year. Skitszo is a great introduction for this young singer. Here's to more success for Colette Carr.

Five Finger Death Punch Release Their Best Album

It's been a while but I'm finally back to posting! Five Finger Death Punch released their fourth record ,The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 1, last month and it's their best album.
The metal titans have always made good albums filled with aggressive, fast-paced metal songs. However, on their fourth offering, Five Finger Death Punch take that to a new level. From angry anthems like "Watch You Bleed," Burn MF" and lead single "Lift Me Up" which features Rob Halford from Judas Priest to the albums lone slower song "Wrong Side of Heaven," the band tackle these songs with prowess.
From the aggressive screams and beautifully sung cleans of front man Ivan Moody to the harsh guitars and banging drums of the rest of the band, the sound is perfect on this record.
The two best songs on the album would have to be "Anywhere But Here," the duet version with In This Moment singer Maria Brink and "Mama Said Knock You Out," a bad ass, hard rocking cover of LL Cool J's hit which features Tech N9ne.
While songs like "I.M. Sin" and "Dot Your Eyes" are perfect anthems for an angry rampage, the lone bad song is "Diary of a Deadman," a strange spoken word, hot mess of a song.
The disc features three bonus songs which are versions of album cuts with guest vocalists. There is the duet version of "Anywhere But Here" which far surpasses the original and "I.M. Sin" which features Max Cavalera, vocalist for Soulfly. The latter doesn't do anything differently for the song. However the third bonus track "Dot Your Eyes" with Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed is gives the song a new spunk.
As if this record wasn't good enough, Five Finger Death Punch plan to release The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 2 later this year.