Slowmotion Apocalypse
My Own Private Armageddon
5.5
As if Americans were’t beating Slaughter of the Soul to death like a dead horse quite enough, here come the Italians with their own US sounding take on modern hardcore based neo-thrash-whatever-core. Now, a couple of Europeans have impressed me with their take on a tired sound (Faust Again, Amok), but the Italians as with almost every genre except power metal…erm…..take a while to catch on. Infliction is the only Italian band I can think of that has taken on the At The Gates style, and they didn.t do too well..
Slowmotion Apocalypse (the name has to go kids), are so formulaic and by the numbers, they make most of Metal Blade’s metalcore roster look like original geniuses, but as with The Divining, if you like the genre, there might something to like here; chugging, high energy riffage, fairly tight thrash posturing and enough solos here and there to break up the cantering pacing of the all too familiar songs. They even brought in Tribunal pitch hitter producer Jamie King (Swift, Between the Buried and Me, Prayer For Cleansing) to ‘Americanize’ their sound. And it sounds great, it’s just a pity none of the songs can do the production justice.
My Own Private Armageddon is just one vast cliché (even the cover) of modern sub genre bastardization and cross pollination that despite its vigor and urge to be good, just flops with the heavy slap of unoriginality. Slowmotion Apocalypse do try, really they do, but with a total lack of memorable songs and riffs the end result is just a flat, tired album that I’m stunned to find involved with Tribunal Records. “Psychic War 2.0”, “Last Generation Humans” and “The Art of Self Drinking Blood” might register on some fans memories but other wise bland, forgetful tracks like “The Insomniac”, “Kill In Progress”
and “Vote For Extinction” just kind of gallop along with no real creative spark or difference making moments.
Vocalist Alberto Zannier adds to the albums generic sheen with a flat monotone semi shout that just seems indifferent to anything the music is doing. Granted, the musicianship is tighter than the recently reviewed similar styling of The Divining, but Slowmotion Apocalypse lack the primal ‘want’ that The Divining have despite their own creative limitations. To be frank, Slowmotion Apocalypse come across as just going through the motions as do Tribunal for releasing this….
