Parental Advisory: if your kid asks you to buy this album, beat them... For those of you who regularly read this blog, you should know that in all fairness, I will listen to practically anything with an open mind...I mean Jesus Christ I actually own a copy of "Undiscovered" by BROOKE HOGAN because I thought her dad would drop the leg on me if I didn't buy it...(I have absolutely zero connections with HULK HOGAN, let that be known) but my point is, I will listen to anything at least once and, if a PR company or band emails me to work alongside them, well I'm not ignorant, I will give them the time of day. I'm not for one minute suggesting I'm elitist, I try my best to get through everything sent my way with often varying degrees of appreciation (BANKRUPT PUG anyone?) and I always voice my opinion fairly. Granted, the amount of fucks given will vary depending on what you send me...but...I will always weigh up pro's and cons. Right now you are wondering why I'm spending so much time elaborating on this when I could just go straight into my review...well...it's fairly simple...I'm forewarning you...tonight's article is about a band called NOO5E...an Aberdare-born trio of old-school rockers, who recently released a record by the name of "Blood Rose". I hate bashing local talent but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind...
Before I touch on any music...I have to vent on something...when I received the email requesting a write-up on this material, Mick Roach (vocalist/bassist) included the album artwork as a downloadable file...it was a mobile phone full screen-shot...what do you want me to do? Crop the image myself? No...I'm not doing that...you are trying to promote your band man! SURELY you have a proper jpg. file of the artwork? A screenshot...dude you may as well have drawn it using fucking crayon and sent it by post...I'm not going to use that, you need to work on that honestly...now that that's out of the way let's get this mini-album going with opening track "Death And The Angel"...by name it sounds a little prog-ish to say the least but oh no...all of the no...while the guitar work leans towards classic metal in style, the riffs here are simple but effective in an old-school sense, but, it's really quite repetitive...there's a decent bridge towards the two-minute mark that works well, almost a mid-song crescendo that gets you hyped up but it's literally the only positive point of the track...it's quite underwhelming...and it drags.
"Fear" while starting promisingly, albeit slowly with it's bass driven intro for some reason it sounds like an out-take from an unofficial soundtrack to Team America...I don't know what it is but there is a certain twang to the vocals here that make me immediately think of Trey Parker and Matt Stone (AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!)...with an almost forced METALLICA-esque quality to proceedings. "Useless" without me wanting to be too literal, is a bit that...there are moment's of this track where you simply can't help but imagine the ULTIMATE WARRIOR in slow motion...at over six minutes here it's too much of too little and it burns out pretty quickly, just like James Hellwig really...It's the Wrestlemania XII of tracks...and lyrically? Lyrically it's just incredible...
"Driving The Dead" has initial blue's tones to it but quickly embraces more of a brash, low quality punk rock vibe...personally I don't know if the vocals have been recorded through a pillow or from outside the building from the other end of the fucking street...but seriously these are the poorest quality vocals you could expect and I don't care what your genre is, if you listen to this and think that it's good enough, then you need to stop being in a band...sadly however it doesn't end there...tortured APOCALYPTICA-esque number "The Haunting" is guilty by association here with the pained string elements but it's the vocals that shit all over this song...honestly, this isn't a climax, this is more a case of I need a mortician to clean this shit up...for a band that likes KISS, W.A.S.P. and SLIPKNOT there's virtually no substance to them...if you are a blood rose, then you must have anemia. If you see ANYBODY with this album, get up B&Q and sort them out some weed killer, seriously...or they'll end up in a noose themselves. [1]
If you click on the image below, yes, the screenshot I mentioned earlier (as the band have no YouTube content) you'll be taken to Spotify, where you can stream "Blood Rose" for yourself...if you dare.
Before I touch on any music...I have to vent on something...when I received the email requesting a write-up on this material, Mick Roach (vocalist/bassist) included the album artwork as a downloadable file...it was a mobile phone full screen-shot...what do you want me to do? Crop the image myself? No...I'm not doing that...you are trying to promote your band man! SURELY you have a proper jpg. file of the artwork? A screenshot...dude you may as well have drawn it using fucking crayon and sent it by post...I'm not going to use that, you need to work on that honestly...now that that's out of the way let's get this mini-album going with opening track "Death And The Angel"...by name it sounds a little prog-ish to say the least but oh no...all of the no...while the guitar work leans towards classic metal in style, the riffs here are simple but effective in an old-school sense, but, it's really quite repetitive...there's a decent bridge towards the two-minute mark that works well, almost a mid-song crescendo that gets you hyped up but it's literally the only positive point of the track...it's quite underwhelming...and it drags.
"Fear" while starting promisingly, albeit slowly with it's bass driven intro for some reason it sounds like an out-take from an unofficial soundtrack to Team America...I don't know what it is but there is a certain twang to the vocals here that make me immediately think of Trey Parker and Matt Stone (AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!)...with an almost forced METALLICA-esque quality to proceedings. "Useless" without me wanting to be too literal, is a bit that...there are moment's of this track where you simply can't help but imagine the ULTIMATE WARRIOR in slow motion...at over six minutes here it's too much of too little and it burns out pretty quickly, just like James Hellwig really...It's the Wrestlemania XII of tracks...and lyrically? Lyrically it's just incredible...
"Driving The Dead" has initial blue's tones to it but quickly embraces more of a brash, low quality punk rock vibe...personally I don't know if the vocals have been recorded through a pillow or from outside the building from the other end of the fucking street...but seriously these are the poorest quality vocals you could expect and I don't care what your genre is, if you listen to this and think that it's good enough, then you need to stop being in a band...sadly however it doesn't end there...tortured APOCALYPTICA-esque number "The Haunting" is guilty by association here with the pained string elements but it's the vocals that shit all over this song...honestly, this isn't a climax, this is more a case of I need a mortician to clean this shit up...for a band that likes KISS, W.A.S.P. and SLIPKNOT there's virtually no substance to them...if you are a blood rose, then you must have anemia. If you see ANYBODY with this album, get up B&Q and sort them out some weed killer, seriously...or they'll end up in a noose themselves. [1]
If you click on the image below, yes, the screenshot I mentioned earlier (as the band have no YouTube content) you'll be taken to Spotify, where you can stream "Blood Rose" for yourself...if you dare.
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