Tag Archives: gears

SKULL562

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THUNDERSTONE, Dirt Metal (2009, Sony)

The skull:
This skull has it all, and when I say, “all,” I mean “all the shit that drives me crazy.” It’s crammed full of gears, tubes, and other cheap biomechanical nonsense, and it’s completely brown but somehow not with dirt, which might have actually justified the brownness vis-a-vis the album title. Like the music within, this cover is totally competent, probably expensive, and thoroughly uninteresting, the kind of pointlessness only Scandinavian-branch-of-a-major-label money can buy.

The music:
Thunderstone started as a cheap Stratovarius clone, but over the course of a handful of albums they’ve evolved into a cheap Symphony X clone (minus any trace of that band’s progressive leanings). They’re a perfectly fine, if utterly generic, prog/power band, with a great singer, strong playing, solid songs, and no spirit. If you’re a diehard of the genre, and you routinely spin DGM, At Vance, Bloodbound (the albums without Urban Breed), or Masterplan, then you’ll probably love this. It’s really a pretty good disc, assuming you either haven’t heard much other stuff like this, or you listen to nothing else. I happen to own enough stuff exactly like Dirt Metal that I’m not likely to buy it, but I would probably grab the disc if I saw it for a couple bucks in a used bin. I might never listen to it, but I wouldn’t exactly be ashamed to own it. If I ever found myself in the mood for modern power metal like this, though, I’d probably reach for some Nocturnal Rites, if only out of habit, because this is more or less as good as anything that band’s done post-Afterlife. It’s just no better, which is the problem.
— Friar Johnsen

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DYNABYTE, 2KX (2010, self-released)

The skull:
This might have been a cool cover if someone had actually set out a skull and then projected their stupid blue gears-and-pipes collage onto it. Instead, probably a skull photo was poached from the internet and the industrial cliches were just Photoshopped in. I do like the attention paid to the teeth, though. They look nice.

The music:
Obviously, Dynabyte are industrial metal. The cover gives that away immediately. They’re like a slightly heavier KMFDM, with a little Pslam 69-era Ministry thrown in. Nothing too special, I’d say, although at their best (“Normal”, for instance) they almost approach early Pitch Shifter in quality. The female vocals, courtesy of Cadaveria, remind me a bit of early Genitorturers, although the cleaner singing is more nasal and less appealing. The growling is okay, though. Industrial metal, overall, should be a lot better than it is, but the truth is, for as simple as the ingredients are, almost no one does it properly, or at least to my tastes. It’s a genre of near-misses, of bands that never quite put the pieces together. For every Pitch Shifter, a dozen Drowns. For every Swamp Terrorists, a hundred Dynabytes. And that’s before you even start looking for the bands that out-and-out suck. But if that sort of thing appeals to you, like if you think Circle of Dust are awesome, and you own an Ugly Mustard album, then probably you’ll think Dynabyte are okay.
— Friar Johnsen

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MASTIC SCUM, Dust (2009, Twilight Vertrieb)

The skull:
Wheels within wheels, man. Or gears within skulls, whatever. This is a sharp looking biomech who succeeds on the details. Note the plate in his forehead and the exhaust vents astern, and of course the obligatory barcode (here emblazoned on his jaw). Lots of skulls go for this grimy industrial look, but most of them come off looking like rejected drafts for a Photoshop class. This guy nails it, and though he is to be docked points for presenting his skullacity in profile, and perhaps for a cliched surfeit of brown, he compensates with tasteful highlighting and some truly spectacular teeth.

The music:
Mastic Scum grind after the fashion of Napalm Death, with the death metal quotient turned up a bit. Though not as endearingly jarring as the godfathers of grind, Mastic Scum apply the formula well. The buzzy, super-high-gain guitars and the precise drum work summon a recollection of Fear Factory in better days, but really, most of the “industrial” in Mastic Scum is delegated to the artwork. I won’t say that this sort of music thrills me especially, but I can appreciate craft when I hear it, and Mastic Scum do this style about as well as anyone.
— Friar Johnsen