Not surprisingly, this thrash-metal band sticks closely to the pre-ordained signature for this genre of music - a guy with a growly voice barely coherently (and sometimes not) screaming his lungs out as if he's been caught in a freeze-frame of a terrifying moment, like the shower scene in "Psycho" or maybe getting burned at the stake. Wisely enough, though, they seem to catch themselves being "conventional" and occasionally drift off on some interesting musical and vocal tangents.
While Martin Cock is the only one of the seven players credited for vocals, Chad Hanks (as co-writer of quite a few of the songs) offsets the monotonous screaming with something more vocally recognizable, as well as handling bass, guitars, programming and co-production. Until I was able to decipher the minuscule text on the CD liner notes, I thought maybe Martin's voicebox had multiple personality disorder! Aaron Zilch is credited for keys and "audio terrorism", J. Fouler gets innovative with keyboards and samplers, Wayne Kile and David Rogers add guitar layerings, and Christopher Emery gets nary a break on the drumkit except to direct the metronomic pace, at times even employing a rock'n'roll backbeat or two.
There's nothing very revolutionary in the lyrics, as they typically deal with violence, hatred, torture, mutilation, death and the verboten "f" word - the usual nihilistic diatribes. They have, however, invented a new expression to insult the American way of life, but I'll leave that to you to check out. If they had decided to recite the verses in spoken-word performances instead, it would probably come off sounding quite artistically, albeit morbidly, literate.
Occasionally there are even some melodic moments (e.g. 'The Fall'), but the guys almost seem embarrassed by this and abruptly and constantly revert back to the mantric chants of angry exorcism. The closer, 'Nothing Gets Nothing', almost had a Pearl Jam feel to it, but again the "angry one" intrudes and destroys what could have been a great track.
They should definitely win an award for an innovative CD liner unfolding to become a daguerreotype poster of the band on one side and the other side containing the lyrics, credits and dedications (microscopic though they be). Great artwork on the cover, too, even if U2 already thought up the "war child" concept.
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