I
had seen this band before i heard this album and i was completely blown away by
their amazing hardcore. A week after i saw them, they signed a contract with
Solid State Records and i couldn’t wait to hear their album, had big
expectations of it. The album did live up to my expectations, but not for 100%,
because the live ambiance of Selfmindead is hardly caught. This doesn’t make it a
bad album, believe me: it’s full of technical hard core, combined with singer
Ikko using some kind of distortion on his voice, which makes the singing really
cool. Now his singing isn’t like the usual hard core screaming or the metal
grunting, but you can still distinguish the melody in Ikka’s voice while it
remains a really cool hard core sound.
On
this album, there are no bad songs. Of course, some songs are better than
others, but they all rule! Excellent changes in speed and rythm, great lyrics…
this album makes you wanna scream along (i still do that when i play this cd).
The last song on the album is called “Slip”. It has these really great
changes from hard, brutal hard core to soft, relaxed, laid-back guitar rock,
with every now and then an exlosion of hard core where Ikka tries to scream so
loud as if he wants us here in Holland to hear him without using his
amplifier… (he lives in Sweden, so i hope that says enough). The song that
won’t leave your head is “Fuel Stop”: this is a slower song with this
great drum rythm that goes on and on. When you’ve heard this song a couple of
times, the words “ fill up, fill up, fill up, i’ve got a fuel stop” will
remain in your head for the rest of the day.
This
is a great album, if you like Blindside, this will please you as well. 7.5
points out of 10.
Martijn
for