Review of Illdisposed - 1 - 800 Vindication

Originally coming from a pure death metal background, Denmark's Illdisposed has continually evolved over their long career, even going as far as to release an album entirely of covers. Still maintaining their groove-laden death metal sound that they've been sporting lately, it seems that Illdisposed has stayed relatively the same, but added a few clean-sung passages. And what do you know, they're not that bad, either. Everything else is pretty similar to as it was before, only now things are tighter with keyboards added, maybe due to their recent signing with Roadrunner. It's definitely a change, but they're firmly holding on to their garbled low vocals, head-bobbing rhythms, meaty guitar tone, and soaring melodic solos. The last track, "The Final End", has a real dark and thrashy feel to it, further supporting the idea that with their recent label change, they're not striving for mainstream popularity.

I always feel like this band is just fucking around and that they're going to spontaneously admit that they're really just Blood Duster in disguise. I don't know, something about them. Maybe it's just the humorous lyrics I still get stuck in my head off of 1997's There's Something Rotten... Or maybe it's the fact that they start tracks like "Jeff" off with samples from Wayne's World 2.

It's all really catchy still, which I've always praised Illdisposed for. Their ability to write really heavy music with a lot of great hooks, yet could never be accused of selling out or pandering to the masses. In any case, I'm really glad to hear these guys with a new release of such a high caliber. 1-800 Vindication isn't a leap forward or anything, but it's assuredly not a step backwards. It's admirable when a band manages to expand their sound, yet still retains the defining elements we all adore them for. Lets hope that the addition of keyboards and tasteful clean vocals doesn't cause a backlash of former fans decrying them.

Release Details

Illdisposed

1 - 800 Vindication

Comments

Related