Axewound - Vultures (Search And Destroy)
Axewound is yet another addition to the growing list of "supergroups"--a title quickly evoking a yawn with every new group of dudes that get together between tours to play something over-the-top. This particular group has Matt Tuck (Bullet For My Valentine), Liam Cormier (Cancer Bats), and some guys from Glamour of the Kill, Rise to Remain, and Pitchshifter. I don't listen to any of these bands. They're not really my thing. But more power to them. I picked up the Axewound album because the name made me laugh and I had an extra $5. Figured I'd review the record.
Whoa. The first song, "Vultures" (which features a gnarly guitar solo by Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold), is simply brutal. Heavy as all get out. These guys are like me and really enjoy the "fuck" word. It's all over the title track and a handful of others. I've never been into Slipknot and like-minded bands' lyrical content. Verses like "leave your fucking corpse in the road" and "your ignorance just fucking fuels this fire" feel like they could've been written by Corey Taylor. Lots of people dig that stuff but the words (besides fuck) mean absolutely nothing to me. I'm angry, but not that angry. I can imagine droves of angry twenty-somethings who still live with their parents, middle-fingers in the air, mad at the world and not giving a fuck, headed to the next Mayhem Festival playing the shit out of Vultures. I get that. In hindsight, it would all sound pretty lame if Axewound did something less intense. Damned if you do...
"Post Apocalyptic Party" has a pretty hooky chorus and really ferocious twang, but similar lyrical content. End of the world. Party till you're dead. Nowhere left to turn. Numbered days. Same shit. I really like Liam Cormier's vocals. I think the upper registry he uses is really effective. It would've been too easy to have the demonic warble of the Balrog, so, in that sense I think Cormier has got a trump hand. Sad to say music this heavy, executed this tightly, can actually make me bored. Maybe it's the fact that there is far more melody involved than other intense bands like say, Pig Destroyer. I don't get bored with Pig Destroyer. But that's probably just an unfair comparison. I think I'm just far more over the metalcore thing than I had anticipated. Even if Axewound is heavier than the vast majority of the other bands slapped with that label, it all really just sounds the same.
"Victim of the System" is something I can imagine listening to in an SUV with the volume turned up to 11. Running red lights, smoking cigarettes, half drunk, shouting in the backseat with friends and chucking beer cans at mailboxes. Actually the first three songs off Axewound's album make me feel that way, but I feel like the album loses steam around song four: "Cold," a title as tired as a fat dude on a stationary bike. Radio rock ready, a nice harmony going on with the chorus but it reminds me too much of why I no longer listen to the radio. It all sounds like flat beer. This is when I ejected the disc. Catchy and well-done but uninspired.
Judging by the article thus far, you probably get that this album is not blowing my mind. Three weeks from now and it'll be forgotten. Suicide Silence suffered the same fate with me. It's not that it's done poorly, I just don't give a fuck. It's why I don't give a fuck about the majority of these like-minded bands--because the sum of the parts don't normally make me want to listen again. Heavy only goes so far. Maybe I'm a purist in a sense, and I like metal before it got a makeover. When it still reeked of dirt and substance abuse, not soap, cologne and new threads. I liked baseball before I knew it was crooked, football when John Riggins played, Jim Henson's Creature Shop was still being used by Lucasfilm instead of CGI. I still watch, but it's not the same. And in that regard, I apologize. I apologize that I didn't listen to the rest of this record. Next time I'll give a fuck.