Amen--Death to Musick
The band's strongest release?
Packaging--
The good:
The cover has a black and white photo with some pink and puke green thrown in. The colors provide some good contrast and you have a CD you'd notice just walking by.
The bad:
The lyrics are hard to read. I see where they're going with the collage artwork but to me, lyrics are one of, if not the most important part of, an album's packaging. If they wanted to do a collage, they could've had one side be totally collaged and left the lyrics legible. Otherwise the artwork is busy, and quite appropriate for this release.
The music:
The good:
The problem I've always had with Amen is that I enjoy their music but I get bored halfway through their albums. This album, however, kept my interest the whole way through. A lot of the songs have hooks that stick with you and work all the way through. Interestingly, this album was recorded at quite a few studios over a fairly long period of time, in spite of this, it's a very cohesive disc that flows nicely. I would go as far as to say this is doesn't have a bad song on it.
I've heard that this is their "punkest" album. I'm not sure if I agree with that. They've always had a punk influence to them, this disc has it too, but I hear it no more than before. The songs seem catchier, so if that makes it more "punk" then so be it. To me, this is metal, but as we can see, labels are useless. It's loud, heavy music with punk and metal sounds. The songs are fairly short--15 tracks clocks in at under 45 minutes. The songs are long enough to get you into it, but not so short you wish they were longer.
The bad--
This is Amen's strongest release. I can't say anything bad about it.
Recap�
If you enjoy Amen, you should be into this. If you didn't like Amen before--give this one a shot, you may be surprised by the band's improvements. www.refuseamen.com
Want more info?
Refuse Amen
Review by Chris