Monday, February 16, 2004
Album Review: PROBOT
Well, for my album review this time, I decided to forgo the all-too mainstream Incubus in favor of something with some real meat, some thing I could write at length about and for that, I chose Probot. Enjoy:
PROBOT:
Dave Grohl’s Bastard Hellspawn Thrashes the Masses
By Evil Brian
In 2001, the metal world was abuzz with both confusioin and extreme delight as news came around that Dave Grohl, having served time with Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, Queens of the Stone Age, Ozzy Osbourne and countless other bands, was about to launch a creation of most metal proportions. He was going to launch Probot: a combination of his instrumentations and collaborations with the thrash metal lead singers of the 80’s and 90’s that he worshipped as gods. Everyone had an opinion on this idea: many called it inappropriate and treated it as if Dave Grohl was spitting in each and every face of every member of the thrash metal scene. Others considered it a blessing and touted it as possibly being the best metal alliance ever. Whichever the opinion, anticipation grew and grew, rumors were spread, and now, nearly 3 years later, all has come to fruition as Probot has been unleashed upon the world.
The story goes like this: Grohl came up with the idea, and immediately went about writing tons of music. He brought together the best cuts, and sent them out to his favorite metal vocalists from his favorite bands that were making a noise on the underground metal scene between 1983 and 1990. Te result is an album featuring 11 of the loudest, fastest, most brutal and downright ass-kicking metal tracks to come out in the past 3 years! Such an album (one could almost call it a compilation if it weren’t so well put together) demands a track-by-track breakdown.
The first track, Centuries of Sin, features Cronos from Venom and firmly establishes that this is no nu-metal, walk in the park poseur album. Loud and fast and reminiscent of Metallica’s first album, this track prepares you for the insane onslaught of brutality you’re about to face. Gritty vocals and heavy-as-hell riffs all come together to blast a hole through your head.
Red War, featuring Max Cavalera from Sepultura/Soulfly is next and totally blows all of his work with Soulfly out of the water. Where Soulfly struggles to be a relevant nu-metal band and ultimately fails at the relevant portion, this Probot track brings him back to his thrash/punk/metal roots with Sepultura and reminds us just why Cavalera is so damned important and respected in the metal scene in the first place. Double bass kick drums, and a repetitious, almost punk guitar line give way to an incredible guitar riff and Max’s always-brutal vocals. This will make you miss the old Sepultura lineup more and more.
Lemmy from Motorhead fronts the next track and the album’s first single, Shake Your Blood. This track just OOZES Motorhead madness- Lemmy lends his bass and his easily-recognizable voice to this absolutely grinding (and ultimately derivative) metal track. The video for this can be found on www.probotmusic.com and features the always-entertaining SuicideGirls burlesque troupe. NOT to be missed.
Access Babylon features Mike Dean from Corrosion of Conformity who brings a very different sound to the table. This is certainly not a COC song; rather, it is a short fast thrash metal tune very different from the slow, sludgey Southern metal his band is known for. Still, a very cool tune.
The next track features Kurt Brecht from thrash/punk pioneers DRI, and has a very punk-type feel to it. The vocals are delivered very matter-of-factly and seem to announce each line. The instrumentation is pretty derivative and kind of bland, and, though the chorus is very cool and features some nice cymbal-work, this is definitely the weakest song on the entire disc.
Ice Cold Man has the awesome Lee Dorrian on it, hailing from black/death metal bands such as Cathedral and Napalm Death. It’s a slow, heavy Sabbath-esque tune, which has an almost doom-metal feel to it. Very dark and murky and Lee does an amazing job with the lyrics adding to the creepy atmosphere of the entire song.
Track seven is one that Dave Grohl has described as one of his favorites. Featuring Wino from St. Vitus and Obsessed, the song The Emerald Law starts off pretty mellow until the vocals come in and the guitars start up and everything goes all to hell. Gloomy thrash metal, and it works.
Tom G. Warrior from Swiss death metal legends Celtic Frost sings on Big Sky. A hard-driving powerhouse of a song, Warrior’s overwhelming voice lends a ton of muscle and blends well with the simplistic, chugging bass-heavy riffs that push this song into sinister, head-banging territory.
Voivod’s Snake lends his vocals to Dictatosaurus and the progressive metal legend does NOT disappoint. With a lot of the same lyrical styles and vocal melodies as his original group, Snake’s part-nasally, part-melodic voice kicks the hell out of Grohl’s almost industrial-feeling guitar and drums.
Eric Wagner of power/thrash giants Trouble sings another gloom and doom, hell it’s almost GOTHIC, metal track My Tortured Soul. Depressing and ass-kicking at the same time, the song just FEELS dirty and sludgy and thick; kind of a cross between Black Sabbath and Master of Puppets-era Metallica. Very cool and very listenable.
The final track features the always-impressive King Diamond from Satanic death/thrash pioneers Mercyful Fate and ends the album with an amazing performance that nobody could ever forget. With some of the heaviest and hardest music on the entire album, King Diamond slaps his trademark falsetto all over Sweet Dreams (the guy from The Darkness has NOTHING on King Diamond) and screeches and screams at the top of his evil lungs until the song comes to an all-too-abrupt crashing halt.
This CD just screams for repeated listens. It feels like a compilation or a soundtrack, but it’s so much more. Every single song has an individual feel to it, and yet a similar vein is kept throughout not just with the music, but the overall mood of the album. It’s dark, it’s evil, it’s motherf*%@ing METAL. Dave Grohl was heavily criticized for trying to put together his “death metal supergroup” in 2001; most said that it couldn’t be done, and almost everyone thought it was going to suck. This just goes to show how very wrong people can be. Probot may very well end up having produced the finest metal release of the year. This is an excellent way to school so-called “metal” fans into exactly what metal is supposed to sound like by taking the roots of metal music and resurrecting them for all to hear. This is the rebirth of old school thrash metal into the modern era. This is heaviness. This is metal. This is Probot.
Listen if you like: Black Sabbath, old Metallica, Motorhead, Celtic Frost, etc.
Visit: www.probotmusic.com
www.southernlord.com
by Evil Brian
Listen to Probot and more on the SMF Metal Morning Show
every Mon. – Fri. from 6:00 to 8:30 AM
Only on WPNR Power 90.7 FM
Utica College Radio.
WPNRevilGM@yahoo.com
|
Well, for my album review this time, I decided to forgo the all-too mainstream Incubus in favor of something with some real meat, some thing I could write at length about and for that, I chose Probot. Enjoy:
PROBOT:
Dave Grohl’s Bastard Hellspawn Thrashes the Masses
By Evil Brian
In 2001, the metal world was abuzz with both confusioin and extreme delight as news came around that Dave Grohl, having served time with Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, Queens of the Stone Age, Ozzy Osbourne and countless other bands, was about to launch a creation of most metal proportions. He was going to launch Probot: a combination of his instrumentations and collaborations with the thrash metal lead singers of the 80’s and 90’s that he worshipped as gods. Everyone had an opinion on this idea: many called it inappropriate and treated it as if Dave Grohl was spitting in each and every face of every member of the thrash metal scene. Others considered it a blessing and touted it as possibly being the best metal alliance ever. Whichever the opinion, anticipation grew and grew, rumors were spread, and now, nearly 3 years later, all has come to fruition as Probot has been unleashed upon the world.
The story goes like this: Grohl came up with the idea, and immediately went about writing tons of music. He brought together the best cuts, and sent them out to his favorite metal vocalists from his favorite bands that were making a noise on the underground metal scene between 1983 and 1990. Te result is an album featuring 11 of the loudest, fastest, most brutal and downright ass-kicking metal tracks to come out in the past 3 years! Such an album (one could almost call it a compilation if it weren’t so well put together) demands a track-by-track breakdown.
The first track, Centuries of Sin, features Cronos from Venom and firmly establishes that this is no nu-metal, walk in the park poseur album. Loud and fast and reminiscent of Metallica’s first album, this track prepares you for the insane onslaught of brutality you’re about to face. Gritty vocals and heavy-as-hell riffs all come together to blast a hole through your head.
Red War, featuring Max Cavalera from Sepultura/Soulfly is next and totally blows all of his work with Soulfly out of the water. Where Soulfly struggles to be a relevant nu-metal band and ultimately fails at the relevant portion, this Probot track brings him back to his thrash/punk/metal roots with Sepultura and reminds us just why Cavalera is so damned important and respected in the metal scene in the first place. Double bass kick drums, and a repetitious, almost punk guitar line give way to an incredible guitar riff and Max’s always-brutal vocals. This will make you miss the old Sepultura lineup more and more.
Lemmy from Motorhead fronts the next track and the album’s first single, Shake Your Blood. This track just OOZES Motorhead madness- Lemmy lends his bass and his easily-recognizable voice to this absolutely grinding (and ultimately derivative) metal track. The video for this can be found on www.probotmusic.com and features the always-entertaining SuicideGirls burlesque troupe. NOT to be missed.
Access Babylon features Mike Dean from Corrosion of Conformity who brings a very different sound to the table. This is certainly not a COC song; rather, it is a short fast thrash metal tune very different from the slow, sludgey Southern metal his band is known for. Still, a very cool tune.
The next track features Kurt Brecht from thrash/punk pioneers DRI, and has a very punk-type feel to it. The vocals are delivered very matter-of-factly and seem to announce each line. The instrumentation is pretty derivative and kind of bland, and, though the chorus is very cool and features some nice cymbal-work, this is definitely the weakest song on the entire disc.
Ice Cold Man has the awesome Lee Dorrian on it, hailing from black/death metal bands such as Cathedral and Napalm Death. It’s a slow, heavy Sabbath-esque tune, which has an almost doom-metal feel to it. Very dark and murky and Lee does an amazing job with the lyrics adding to the creepy atmosphere of the entire song.
Track seven is one that Dave Grohl has described as one of his favorites. Featuring Wino from St. Vitus and Obsessed, the song The Emerald Law starts off pretty mellow until the vocals come in and the guitars start up and everything goes all to hell. Gloomy thrash metal, and it works.
Tom G. Warrior from Swiss death metal legends Celtic Frost sings on Big Sky. A hard-driving powerhouse of a song, Warrior’s overwhelming voice lends a ton of muscle and blends well with the simplistic, chugging bass-heavy riffs that push this song into sinister, head-banging territory.
Voivod’s Snake lends his vocals to Dictatosaurus and the progressive metal legend does NOT disappoint. With a lot of the same lyrical styles and vocal melodies as his original group, Snake’s part-nasally, part-melodic voice kicks the hell out of Grohl’s almost industrial-feeling guitar and drums.
Eric Wagner of power/thrash giants Trouble sings another gloom and doom, hell it’s almost GOTHIC, metal track My Tortured Soul. Depressing and ass-kicking at the same time, the song just FEELS dirty and sludgy and thick; kind of a cross between Black Sabbath and Master of Puppets-era Metallica. Very cool and very listenable.
The final track features the always-impressive King Diamond from Satanic death/thrash pioneers Mercyful Fate and ends the album with an amazing performance that nobody could ever forget. With some of the heaviest and hardest music on the entire album, King Diamond slaps his trademark falsetto all over Sweet Dreams (the guy from The Darkness has NOTHING on King Diamond) and screeches and screams at the top of his evil lungs until the song comes to an all-too-abrupt crashing halt.
This CD just screams for repeated listens. It feels like a compilation or a soundtrack, but it’s so much more. Every single song has an individual feel to it, and yet a similar vein is kept throughout not just with the music, but the overall mood of the album. It’s dark, it’s evil, it’s motherf*%@ing METAL. Dave Grohl was heavily criticized for trying to put together his “death metal supergroup” in 2001; most said that it couldn’t be done, and almost everyone thought it was going to suck. This just goes to show how very wrong people can be. Probot may very well end up having produced the finest metal release of the year. This is an excellent way to school so-called “metal” fans into exactly what metal is supposed to sound like by taking the roots of metal music and resurrecting them for all to hear. This is the rebirth of old school thrash metal into the modern era. This is heaviness. This is metal. This is Probot.
Listen if you like: Black Sabbath, old Metallica, Motorhead, Celtic Frost, etc.
Visit: www.probotmusic.com
www.southernlord.com
by Evil Brian
Listen to Probot and more on the SMF Metal Morning Show
every Mon. – Fri. from 6:00 to 8:30 AM
Only on WPNR Power 90.7 FM
Utica College Radio.
WPNRevilGM@yahoo.com
