Review Summary: Casino Madrid have become fellow 'Robots' of this genre.
Casino Madrid were a band that grew due to their mildly successful blend of electronica and ‘core’ music attracting fans from California and slowly across the rest of North America.
With the release of ‘For Kings & Queens’ EP, their popularity and hype grew. They had created a good short release, foreboding electronics mixed with a strong set of lungs: typical core music played relatively well. With the release of ‘Robots’, Casino Madrid throw it all away, in return they produce an album that is overproduced, painfully generic and at times, cringe worthy.
Vocally, the band has improved in the screaming department, as the lead vocalist has an impressive range; from resonating gutturals which emphasises the melodramatic emotion to a frantic sharp shriek/scream. The screams take the lead on this album which is a positive; the clean singer has a bothersome voice that is irritating and auto-tuned, a typical inclusion for this scene. Lyrically, the band tries too hard to be either: A) really aggressive or B) easy go-lucky partygoers, both damaging potentially ‘good’ songs. Although they sometimes pull it off, it seems too forced and a bit awkward to listen to. Furthermore, the lyrical themes are so cookie-cutter it’s dire, murder, sex, partying, you name it, it’s there.
Musically, Robots is average, the drums are fast paced and played well; the guitars are used for nothing more than breakdowns and a few attempted half-baked riffs/solos. The band boasted an abundance of top-notch electronic elements on this album, yet they never match the hype. The electronics at times come to the front of the mix and are implemented well, but most of the time they sit in the background purely to carry drab verses. However, Casino Madrid can create sub-par song climaxes, building up momentum and then unleashing it with a typical-core breakdown, it’s expected but a guilty pleasure.
The overall sound is your typical metalcore splashed with synths; it has your standard ‘core’ tunings to make the album more ‘heavy’ and the pulsing synth lines coursing through the standard sound palette. The album is mixed well and everything fits in place creating a cohesive listen and your senses are bombarded on more than one occasion with finesse. Simply, Robots' sound just isn’t anything special.
In conclusion, Robots is an average album: it has your high points and your more than often low points. It’s instrumentally sloppy making the album feel rushed resulting in an all too familiar sound in just about every way possible. On the other hand, it has Casino Madrid’s mark on it, allowing the unimaginative musical approach to be listenable. If you’re a fan of metalcore then you’ll enjoy this to a degree but in no way can it can compete with previous releases of this year, it just isn’t commendable enough for a band that could have done better.
