Unholy - Blood Of The Medusa
Posted on July 19, 2007 at 8:00 am by admin
Sometimes I have to remind myself that the 90’s wasn’t the worst musical decade from the last century. It’s probably due to the fact that when I think of the 90’s and heavy music, a certain genre of heavy music that was more popular than the rest comes to mind, and I kind of forget about all the cool underground stuff that was there… Why do I bring up the 90’s? Because Unholy has a huge 90’s metal influence without touching the genre of which we do not speak it’s name.
The idea that the guys from Unholy seem to have with “Blood Of The Medusa” is that trying to be heavy doesn’t have to be a blatantly obvious as the fastest death metal blast beats, or the slowest de-tuned sludge. Considering that the press release I got with the album advertises that there a in fact no blast beats, perhaps Unholy are also trying to buck some current death metal/black metal influenced bands as of late that are jumping on a bandwagon.
The general sound you’ll get from “Blood Of The Medusa” is based mostly on groove-laden half thrash hanging around the same area as Machine Head and Pantera without actually ripping off those bands. After that, most of the other bits and pieces that are mixed in to make Unholy more interesting are much more subtle. A variety of 90’s influences could be there, such as an odd string bend, or perhaps an odd time signature like Meshuggah, or a few hints of harmonies from Swedish melodic death metal bands, a dashing of a southern riff, or even in a few spots that are simple chord runs that could’ve come from alternative metal. They’re done in such a way that really leaves me scratching my head as to if that’s what those little nuances are supposed to sound like, or whether it’s just the sum total of what they’re playing. I have to say though, perhaps their mixture has unintentionally gotten them to sound a hint similar to Lamb Of God at times.
There are parts that you can hear that are certainly mosh parts created for the live environment, but they’re certainly not single note breakdowns, and the build up to those parts isn’t obnoxiously huge, but are there instead to offer a break in the song, rather than making a mosh part and/or parts the focal point. About the only hardcore thing I could hear was the odd gang vocal every now and then.
There’s one pretty simple, but large downside to “Blood Of The Medusa”, and it’s the fact that all of the songs are around the same tempo, and really blur together. I can’t really say that any of the songs is an attention grabber, and the album comes off like a collection of songs that could be played in any random order.
Overall, it’s nice to hear a pure metal band that’s modern, as there are so many bands and fans that have the idea that to make a purely metal album, it has to be retro.
In the end, I actually had to make a better ending to this review. I basically viewed Unholy from the standpoint of not knowing who the band was at all, and looked at the album as only what it sounds like. As it turns out, the band does have quite a few underground hardcore connections. So who knew a band from the REAL hardcore scene could make such a decent pure metal album?
The Official Unholy Website
Unholy at MySpace
Unholy at Lambgoat Records
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