Review Summary: Diverse French Technical Metal
To say the least i know very little about the french metal scene in fact I know so little about it that i didnt even think it existed until a french band named dagoba shocked me live supporting In Flames, since that moment Ive had the upmost respect for french metal! Later on i found out about Gojira which got me a little more intrested in the french side of things but it wasnt until i saw this band supporting Divine Heresy that i was truly impressed.
Hacride put on an amazing show in fact through sections of songs the singer dropped his mic and screamed his parts and could still be heard! They litrally blew me away so i went out (play.com :p) and brought there latest album Amoeba. The album opens with a clean guitar building up tension this guitar gradually gets louder until the entire band explodes into the first track "Perturbed". What strikes you immediatly is the intensity of the band the guitars sound brutal, the drums are perfect and the singers scream is powerful. Aswell as the actual sound of the band the technicality of the band is impressive aswell as the track Perturbed and every song on this album plays host to a whole variety of odd time signitures, off the top of my head i cannot remember a single 4/4 passage! The opening track ends rather epic like with lots of synth and then some spanish accoutic guitar. Overall nice intro to the album.
Throughout Amoeba the spanish guitar (well which think sounds fairly spanish like) is used alot. This is what makes the album so diverse many sections of it are accoustic or an accoustic is playing underneath the heavily distorted guitars. Zambra is a perfect example of this diversity. From what i know this is a cover song, it features two female guest vocalists. The track sounds so random but in a strange way it works. The track opens with an accoustic guitar which quickly distorts into a typical odd time signiture riff then again quickly fades into more accoustic spanish style guitar. Hand drums kick in aswell as the bass drum and the song turns into... well i cant describe it! Im sure somone more educated in spanish music would be able to tell you but imagine a really spanish sounding song and you get the picture! deffenitly somthing worth downloading.
The Album itself is very consistent, every song is well layed out with crushing odd time sig guitar and drums, growled vocals and accoustic melodies. The album reminds me of bands such as mnemic and threat signal which is a good thing in the sence that they are fairly good bands but it means nothing new has been put on the table, the only thing that sets hacride part from these bands is the lack of poppy chorus's (thumbs up) and the inclusion of the accoustic guitars (again thumbs up).
Following on from the intro track are the song "Fate" and "Vision of Hate" both fairly similer songs but amazing non the less. Fate starts off with an accoustic guitar (theres a pattern here isnt there) then breaks into what can only be described and noise for i know not what they are playing on there guitars! The song goes into a verse which features mainly meshuggah style chugging, in fact every song follows suit, then into the chorus simler to that of Perturbeds. I would go on and describe more of the tracks in detail but everything i could say about them has already been sed about the previous tracks mentioned so there would be no point, so....if your a fan of bands such as threat signal, mnemic, meshuggah give these guys a check! The Album is a solid second album that will leave you breathless by its brutal technicallity aswell as its futuristic overtones and accoustic undertones.
Pros
An album diverse in the sence its not all heavy, it has its accoustic moments to which keep you intrested.
A very technical album.
Cons
Poor French to English translation
The songs all seem to follow the same formula
A few of the track have no need to be aslong as they are
Tracks to listen to
Perturbed
Vision of Hate
On The Threshold of Death
Zambra
