Review Summary: From thrash metal heroes, to groove metal zeroes.
The 90’s is often regarded as a dark and sad time for many metal fans, as many of their favorite bands have either lost the spotlight, split up or changed their sound drastically (and often times not for the better) in order to survive in the changing musical scene. Of course we have to view things in more than one perspective. Times and music always change, and while classic heavy metal and thrash may have been swept away by the grunge/alternative movement, the underground flourished with many exciting bands and there was one group who managed to lead the way with their pure, unfiltered aggression: Pantera.
Pantera is certainly a band that does not need any introduction, as their unique, heavy and instantly recognizable sound made them a pioneer of what we consider groove metal. Detuned, rugged, sludgy riffing rooting in blues and thrash which became the foundation of many younger metal bands to follow. Which brings us to Destruction. The leading Teutonic thrash bands all had different ways to cope with the changes that the new decade brought. Kreator choose experimentation, Sodom choose punk, Tankard choose loyalty and Destruction choose emulation. You can guess which one of them came out the worst results.
After “Cracked Brain”, the band went on hiatus for a couple of years before reforming in a new line-up (as Neo-Destruction), and instead of the fast paced, intense and biting thrash riffing, guitarist Mike Sifringer and his buddies decided to become full-fledged, shameless trend hoppers by trying to adapt Pantera’s style, right down to the guitar sound and riff patterning. Except they didn’t possessed the flavors and substance Dimebag Darrel had. This resulted four years of chuga-chuga groove metal wankery with two hideous, god-awful EP’s, all culminating in an album that is pretty much the embodiment of second-hand embarrassment.
The best way to describe the music here is a nightmarish, jumbled mess that tries to shine as unique by mixing stuff that just simply doesn’t match. The opener “Formless, Faceless, Nameless” is a schizophrenic void that tries to match the dense and tight Machine Head-like riffs with jazzy pop bass and some Mike Patton-like scream vocals. Confused yet? Well the rest of the album doesn’t give you the lifebuoy either. The band aimlessly throw idea after idea into the songs, from groove metal, to some degree of thrash, to funk, to prog rock, to some industrial and God knows what else. Sure some of the riff manage to stick but either they are buried by the bad ones, or simply fall flat by the execution.
Crappy breakdown section slapped in between a few fairly decent groovy riffs on “Tick On A Tree”, over 2 minutes of aimless clean guitar meandering before getting to the point and not having much of one on “Cellar Soul”, oddball aboriginal chanting at the beginning of “Continental Drift I” and a couple of really lame slap bass interludes, just to mention a few. The band is so busy on the whole record, none of the song manage to come off as consistent or cohesive, as if they can’t even decide what kind of music they want to play. However some of the riffworks does manage to hit the mark like the furious swirling of “263 Dead Popes” or the mid-tempo precision of “Continental Drift II”. In fact with a better guitar tone, some selection and Schimer’s possible presence I feel most of the songs could have been salvageable.
However the vocals by Thomas Rosenmerkel pretty much drives the stake through any of these hopes. His incessant, overbearing inflections and Phil Anselmo-wannabe, “don’t-***-with-me” mannerisms are some of the most laughable, try-hard and just downright abysmal vocal vomits I’ve had the misfortune to hear. It’s rare to witness a case where one group member can pretty much destroy the minimal effort that the others could sweat out, and this is one of those times. What’s even worse, some of Rosenmerkel’s delivery shows very clear signs that he’s a more classically-trained singer, who has been forced into a position where he can’t properly function.
For all of its good intentions, “The Least Successful Human Cannonball” is a boring, messy and sometimes downright cringe-inducing example of failed experimentation and ambulance-chasing, a fate certainly no worthy for these guys. Fortunately the light appeared at the end of this dark tunnel, as two years later vocalist/frontman Schmier returned and the band corrected the path with releases like “All Hell Breaks Loose” and “The Anitchrist”. Leaving this record and mid 90’s Destruction to be beaten to death with spiked baseball bats and buried six feet down, like a nasty family secret, that no one should know about.
