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For
a change the first thing I did when I sat to listened to
To Punish and Enslave was read the press release which
said, ‘For fans of …Strapping Young Lad, Lamb of God and Belphegor.’ Those type of quotes are misleading as
fuck, so I tend to avoid them. They try to capture the reader, give us a point
of reference and incite us into liking a band because
apparently they were too unimaginative to come up with
their own brew. That said, I was a big fan of Lamb of
God until 2003 when they unleashed As the Palaces Burn.
It’s not that they got shitty. Frankly, I couldn’t even
tell you if they did. I am just more interested in
smaller bands. Strapping Young Lad were OK. They had
their moments of brilliance. I like Belphegor. Have
always liked them. So I was intrigued by the reference.
Genre mish
mash is generally ridiculous. It usually prevents the music from
flowing. When you listen to an album that sounds like it
was put together through cut and paste it’s not a good thing. The three
bands mentioned above are all heavy but there are common threads
in their sound. I don’t hear much of Strapping Young Lad here. Uigg’s music is much too rudimentary, rustic and rough. But as I
fall in their groove I come to find that’s not necessarily a bad
thing.
Vocalist
Dani Dowling is the only one that gets credit for his black
metallish low leprechaun growling, but at times there are two
voices. One is funny and the other one is funnier. This is metal
and I like funny. That’s good. Hey, want a laugh? Hop over
to Uigg’s MySpace and be amused by an image of the band donning
Kiss make up. It’s almost wrong.
What’s not
wrong is the music. Despite the beyond raw, kinda crappy demo
quality of the sound and the rusty playing Uigg’s music rise above such
handicaps.
It’s not only the voice that will make you feel like powdering
your face until you look like a panda bear. The black metal
influence is present throughout the record, blast beats are used
in occasion and the blurred out riffs plague the songs.
The balance
act Uigg pull is no joke, after the blackened “One Shall Stand,
One Shall Fall” we get “Failure”, a death metal tune as
interpreted by a misplaced black metal singer. “Sadistic
Reprisal” is slower, but it still runs like hell and attempts
some aggressive grooves. The song moves like a wave. “Final
Hour” starts off with the vocalist counting off ‘1,2...1,2,3,4’.
I could have done without that. I am not nitpicking but death
metal and black metal need no numbers.
Thrash metal
also rises, but it's obscured by the BM and DM vocals of Dowling, who by
the way, doesn’t let up. He sings and sings, and then sings some
more. At times almost drowning the music with pure fucking
grunting blackness. To Punish and Enslave is an OK record. It
could have been improved by having a more professional and solid
sound. That shit works for pure black metal, not for a bulky mix
of Lamb of God and Belphegor, all of whom
enjoyed excellent production values in their latest recordings.
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