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› Dezperadoz - An Eye For An Eye
In the world of themed heavy metal, there are many ideas that you could go for. Viking is a popular one at the moment as well as cavemen and even the odd troll metal band dotted around. But rarely, if ever, have I heard, or even thought about the idea of a cowboy metal band.
I mean sure, you get southern metal, but it's not exactly going the whole hog to be cowboys, (from hell or otherwise). So when I was offered a chance to review Dezperadoz I jumped at it, looking forward to a new and original musical experience.
I definitely got one.
The album opens with a sort of song story which leaves the listener in no doubt that they're about to enter the musical wild west. This message is confirmed as the first 'real' song kicks in with the cry 'yeehaw mother f*cker'. This song is called 'hate' and for me is one of the best songs on the album, it's got nice harmonies, strong riffs and brilliant production quality. To be honest, all of those qualities are in abundance throughout the album as 'Days of thunder','Wild Bunch' and 'wild times' continue along this theme.
After these four solid songs, you come to one of the highlights of this album a tremendous cover of the classic 'Riders on the Storm' by The Doors, which is a great interpretation by the band and a real entertaining listen.
It's after this treat however, that I feel the album begins to fall apart. Don't get me wrong, the songs still have the riffs and harmonies, but it becomes somewhat stagnant. I don't like to use the word filler because you can hear that a conscious effort has been made to differentiate the tracks, but whilst it's good that they all have similar hallmarks, it's the differences that make songs great and from 'here comes the pain' onwards I feel the band start to repeat themselves.
That is definitely forgiveable, as only a handful of albums have absolutely no filler. But what I feel weakens the album further is that after a couple of listens you begin to notice that the songs are just dragging on. Not just one or two songs, I mean most of the songs going on for at least a minute too long just repeating choruses and overusing riffs throughout the song. Even the better songs on the album are guilty of this. But the worst offender by far is called 'when the circus comes to town' which ends with at least two minutes of monotonous chanting after an uneventful 3 and a half minutes beforehand. That is by far the worst song on the album for me and puts a bit of a damper on the album as a whole.
The outro however is nicely done and the album ends on another cover, '25 minutes to go' which cannot be accused of being dragged out.
In essence I think this album has the potential to be very good. With excellent production and good song writing throughout there's no doubt that the band has the talent to make a very good album. But they are let down by lazyness. Dragging out songs that have no need to be dragged out and often ruining a good song by not ending it whilst it's good.
I honestly believe that if 10 minutes of filler at the end of tracks was cut out of this album I would be able to give it a much better score, but as it is I have to give it six out of ten.
6/10
Jim Hodgson
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