Uninspired riffage.
OK, so you know this is a metal record • the big giveaway apart from the fast and heavy guitar riffage is probably the boobs on the album sleeve, oh yeah, and the demon things with the huge teeth. My problems with this second album from the Springfield five piece are pretty much summed up by the artwork; it’s just so predictable and uninspired.
The album sounds seriously old school and rather than a typical American sound they’ve obviously drawn influence from British talent; the vocals and riffs are 80s metal through and through and sound as if they’ve been inspired by Iron Maiden or Ozzy Osborne. Tracks like ‘Pathway’ run through every metal cliché of the last twenty odd years • fret board wankery of the highest order, a plethora of down-tuned strings, a vocalist straining slightly too high out of his range and the obligatory melodic chorus; it’s all there in abundance. The only difference between the sound on “God Burns Like Flesh” and the old Brit metal that it reminds you of is that it’s quite a bit heavier; the guitars are dark and dirty and slightly Gothy and the drums sometimes verge on thrash, so ultimately there is quite an aggressive sound running throughout.
Despite this aggression though, I found myself not driven to excitement but boredom. Apart from ‘This Is The Day’ which actually stands out because it has a slightly progressive edge and strays from the formula on the rest of the album, (unfortunately, you have to get though six epic length tracks to get to it), many of the tracks here sound too similar to create much of a lasting impact and this is a record that delivers its tunes straight up, there are no quirks to grab you or make you sit up and take notice. Sure, the band can really play and it’s obvious that they know what they’re doing, however the tunes lack an emotional core to draw the listener in. There is so much metal out there at the moment that it’s really hard to feel a connection to a band unless they inject something unusual or special into the experience, as a result, this is just a heavy album...end of story.