Band : Austrian Death Machine
Album title : Double Brutal
Label : Metal Blade Records
Distributor : Rough Trade
Release date : 25/09/2009
Release : (Double) CD

Yeah, the Austrian Death Machine (aka As I Lay Dying singer Tim Lambesis, whom plays all instruments except solo guitars) is back with another bunch of tribute/parody songs dedicated to the movies of Arnold Schwartzeneggar (as it turns out, they were not the first to get this idea, as there’s already a band named ArnoCorps, who’ve been performing in California and the UK for some 7 years now)! Well, actually he and Destroy The Runner singer Chad Ackerman (whom impersonated California’s Governor so perfectly on the Total Brutal album – review posted 29/08/2008) also released a Christmas theme EP titled A Very Brutal Christmas, a couple of months later than the debut album. In between they did some tour support for the album, but after that Lambesis had to concentrate on As I Lay Dying again.

While on tour with that band, he posted on ADM’s MySpace page that he’d already had new ideas for a new album, this one a double disc…with the first continuing the Schwartzeneggar movie/tribute scheme of things, while the second would have covers on it done with Ahhhnold-styled vocals! Returning home in early Summer 2009, Lambesis immediately shut himself up in his studio to record the new album’s tracks…and for some reason opted to work with another Ahhhnold, this time impresonated by one Josh Robert Thompson (with additional Schwartzeneggar vocals coming from “Contest Winning Arnold” Timothy Benham). As on the first album, guitar solos were done by guests, and returning from the first album are Capharnaum’s Jason Suecof, Mercury Switch’s Mark MacDonald, and Skyline Collapse’s James Gericke,. Others joining Lambesis in the studio were Andrew Tapley (The Human Abstract), Rusty Cooley (Outworld), Chris Storey (All Shall Perish), Buz McGrath (Unearth), Kris Norris (formerly of Darkest Hour), and Rocky Gray (Living Sacrifice). Of course, in between the songs you get, as on the first album, the witty repartees between Lambesis and Ahhhnold, but you really dó some of those Ahhhnold-isms within the songs’ vocals as well! Especially so on the second disc, which sees Ahhhnold & Lambesis have a go at covering songs originally by Judas Priest (“Hell Bent For Leather”), Metallica (“Trapped Under Ice”), Motörhead (“Iron Fist”), The Misfits (“I Became A Martian”), Megadeth (Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good”), Goretorture (“Tactically Dangerous – Cannibal Commando”) and Agnostic Front (“Gotta Go”), and which can all be linked to one of the Schwartzeneggar movies somehow (either because the music was featured in the movies, or by association).

End conclusion : this was fun to listen to the first time around, and it remains equally as fun to listen to now! Still, let’s not forget to listen to the music as well, eh (oh, I kinda made a remark about that in my review of the debut ADM album, didn’t I)? Check out what’s posted at myspace.com/austriandeathmachine, and if you don’t like, you simply do not appreciate the same kind of humor as I do. Besides, didn’t ah jus’ tell youh to all-so leesen to tha miu-zeek?! Whooaaaarrrcchhh, blablabllablaaarrrcchhhh!

90/100

Tony.