FOE - Madness

Poland’s recent metal export has been a plethora of black metal bands, yet here comes FOE with its thrash/death style and its first album, Madness. To be honest, right off the bat it’s nothing that I’m even excited about after the first song. In fact, to be perfectly blunt, this album is one of the most boring pieces of music I’ve heard this year.

While competent enough to warrant studio time somewhere, the music is bland thrash with just plain boring and bad vocals. The tracks move like a piece of lint in the breeze, all over and with too much play. Seriously, the vocals are simply a killer for me; I’m not sure if the singer is going for the death or black vocal or his voice is just naturally that annoying, but it grates on my nerves after a minute or so, rendering the album boring and uninspiring.

To be perfectly honest, this sounds more in tune with a really mid-level garage band playing backyards and block parties somewhere. During the track “Lies” the lyrics ask “Do you want to know--/how I’ll make you evil--/when you’re looking for shit-“ Yeah, okay, let’s cover the obvious lack of vision with the occasional cuss word and throw evil into the mix for that “kvlt” sound. I understand the obvious language barrier, but bad lyrics are bad lyrics, no matter the delivery. I really found it hard to sit through the entire offering, but I managed. I never thought even the most rudimentary thrash metal outfit could bore me; I’ve been sent into fits of laughter at some bands, sure, even had the music be stellar while the lyrics suffered, but all around this is just boring and thrown together for the sake of an album.

Every song begins with the same chugging riff, only to predictably speed up so the horrendous vocals can mask the music accordingly. Then towards the middle there’s another chugging riff with, surprise, more vocals over the exact same riffs. This album seriously is a lesson in boredom I’ll hopefully recover from later today.

I truly hate to journalistically urinate on someone’s album, but when something isn’t up to snuff you say so for the sake of fans and the band. I’ve only had to bands pass my desk that have really caused me to rip the poison pen for either lack of vision or just plain boring music (which oft goes hand-in-hand) and FOE is one of the two.I hope they manage to find solace in their other respective projects because this band just isn’t happening. Avoid it for the sake of your musical mental health. 

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*Comments:

April 27, 2010

Reviewer: Chris

Release Date: January 27, 2010
Label: Let Them Come Prod.

TRACK LISTING

1.  Foe
2.  Reminder
3.  Lies
4.  Alcoholic
5.  Madness
6.  Corpse
7.  Possessed
8.  Slavery
9.  Cold
10.  Nothing

Total playing time:  39:40