I Hate Sally "The Plague" CD
[DB Records]
I don't if I'm just harder on stuff these days or if my tolerance for melodic Swedish death metal has reached an all time low, but either way this Canadian act is simply not doing anything for me these days. Granted I wasn't that into their last CD either, but I could at least cite some potential with it. This time around it's more of a stretch, as the recording needs work, there are some sloppy areas performance-wise, and the songwriting is entirely generic. For this go around the band has a new female vocalist who operates within the same general sneering scream as most of these bands, and the music tends to follow suit. Therefore, expect plenty of midpaced to slightly fast alternate picking riffs, melodic dual guitar lines and harmonies, and a couple of chunkier rhythms, but nothing that's breakdown-ish or anything. "Hand That Beats Us Down" drops a sludgy Crowbar sounding riff that's pretty damn cool, and "Transplanted Hearts" attempts to spice up some of the rhythms with a few dissonant chords that aren't bad, but it also has some of the messiest and weakest tremolo picking of the entire EP, and the band is still comparable to earlier Darkest Hour overall. Plus, some of the faster or more "technical" riffing definitely falters, both in the guitar playing and the drumming, so they really need to clean that up. But the drummer's trying to add some color to the music, so I can at least appreciate that. The production? Well, the percussion is a little on the flimsy side, the bass isn't quite prominent enough in the mix, the vocals sound separated from the music, and the guitars are too raw. It sounds like a demo, basically. I could see the drums sounding fine with a little bit of work, and the bass is almost there, but the guitars definitely need a thicker and livelier distortion to beef things up. The CD-R comes in a standard jewel case with black and white packaging that actually looks pretty decent. I'm not blown away by the lyrics but the content is at least decently directed at socio-political commentary without being too basic or simplistic, though a lot of the lines seem somewhat forced in their attempts at abstracting the messages. In the end this is an absolutely generic EP that offers nothing new, and isn't strong enough in its own right to warrant its typicality. They'll definitely need to push for much more power and creativity to turn any heads with the current state of absolute oversaturation that this style is experiencing, and I can't believe they're still using that band name. Seriously, who the hell calls their band I Hate Sally? No offense, but I can't take that shit seriously, people... such an immature designation makes no sense with regards to the music, and especially not the lyrical content. (4/10)
Running time - 15:15, Tracks: 3
[Notable tracks: they're all generic]
I Hate Sally - http://www.ihatesally.com

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