| CD REVIEW Six Reasons To Kill |
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Band : Six Reasons To Kill This Koblenz based German act is hailed as the best selling band in the Bastardized Recordings roster, having shifted over 3,000 copies of their previous album, 2008's Another Horizon. The fact that their guitarist Marco Andree is also the owner of the label only has a little to do with that, because after all the band has been around for quite a while! Formed in 1999, when the hybrid of Metal and Hardcore was fairly strictly an Underground thing, SRtK released their 2000 debut full-length Kiss The Demon on the German Alveran label (and not on Bastardized, who were still in their 7-inch days back then), and saw it licenced by the famed Japanese Howling Bull Entertainment in October 2001. Further material was released in the form of a split CD with Absidia (a joint venture between Bastardized and the legendary Per Koro label) in 2002, and a split with Deadlock (on Winter Recordings) in 2003. In 2004 the band sent out the 2-track Promo Demo 04 to several labels, but nothing gave on the local front, and so Bastardized released the July 2005 full-length Reborn, while Gods Child Music and Tribunal took care of distribution in Asia and the US respectively. The album also marked the band's first run-in with Concrete Web, and a review done by former colleague Trik can still be found posted 20/07/2005. Another Horizon (Bastardized/ Tribunal), recorded at Kohlekeller by producer Kristian “Kohle” Kohlmannslehner,found a different reviewer in colleague Ivan, and was posted 18/05/2008. Over the years, the line-up has seen some changes, and while the current membership is stabilized with Andree and Loc Tran handling the guitars, Lars Tekolf singing, Matthias Machenheimer playing the bass, and Florian Dürr the drums, several notable musicians have passed in the band [including Caliban guitarist Marco Schaller, Bubonix singer Torsten, Deadsoil bassist Stefan Eutebach, and drummers Christof Kather (Japanische Kampfhörspiele) and Patrick Grün (Ilex, Caliban)]. The band has toured with major bands several times in the past, these including Burning Skies Deadlock, Hatebreed, Hatesphere, and Maroon...and were invited to play high profile festivals on German gounds...and I'm sure all of this has helped getting better sales figures as well! For their latest offering, it would seem that the band finally goes off their independent status (after all Massacre is one of the major players, even if not exactly a “major label” in the German Metal scene), but they hàve returned to Kohlmannskeller to record the album (Currently a member of Another Perfect Day, he actually even has a guest role on it, although I don't know in which capacity – another guest role was laid aside for Kurt Ebelhäuser of Blackmail & Scumbucket repute). According to what I've read and compared to what I'm hearing on the new album, one thing the band also did in the course of the latter years, is slightly evolve. Originating with a sound that combined Melodic and Brutal Death Metal (Scadinavia Vs. USA, so to say) with Hardcore, and was therefore still positively identifiable with the ongoing European (say even German) MetalCore genre in general in 2005...causing colleague Trik to compare SRtK with the likes of Heaven Shall Burn, A Traitor Like Judas, Since This Day, early Caliban, Maroon and Narziss, stating the band was on the one side not very original, but on the other side surprisingly efficient). By 2008 the band had apparently evolved towards what Concrete Web's Death Metal specialist put down as “...catchy, melodic and rhythmic Death Metal with elements from thrash metal, Doom and Groove, and even a hint of Metalcore...the aggression goes gently hand in hand with the harmonious melodies...”! In the info sheet provided by the label, we read that the new material “...again closes the gap between Modern and Extreme Death Metal, the band's own Hardcore influence, some laid-back atmospheric sounds, and a heavy flirt with electronica...”. Hum...okay for the mix of Modern and Extreme Death Metal...but if indeed there's Hardcore elements to be found here, it must be in the band's approach to their lyrics. The laid-back atmospheric sounds and heavy flirt with electronica...that's a claim to be taken with a little bit of salt! It's not like as if those elements are goin' to be found in each song, see!? There are some synth lines in the album's opening track “Welcome To Forever”...there's piano being played in the opening sequence of “My Bitterness” (also some bitterly spoken sentences in that same opening, before the track's music explodes in your face), you've got some synth lines in perfect sinc with heavy guitars during the opening sequence of “Awaken”...there's definitely atmospherics during the overall vocally calmer “My Poison” (contains several clean – with a touch of a moan – sung passages, and partly the guitars are also played with a minimum of distortion)...there's the short instrumental “Wandering Stars” (a diddy with atmospheric guitar play, and very little distortion again)...and there's the album closing “Buried To The Sea”, which opens and ends with piano upon an atmospheric keyboards background. That still leaves 4 songs which have none of those “mellowing” agents, even if in two cases there short passages with moaned spoken word vocals. Talking about the vocals! On the one side, you have a guy screaming his guts out (and occasionally singing with an aggressive shout in stead of a scream), and then there's another band member whom brings the deep growl/ grunt. During “My Poison” bóth go clean during a certain passage (of course the song still has the more extreme styles of singing as well)! Well, personally I feel this band is rather a Death Metal than a Metalcore act! I wish I could direct you towards a site on the Internet where you might listen to enough songs off the album to see my point, byt at (www.) myspace.com/sixreasonstokill the band only posted the one “Welcome To Forever” (alongside several songs off the two previous albums). Unless you're living in Germany, where the band has restricted its upcoming gigs for the time being, you're also not gonna be able to check the band in live conditions. So you'll just have to rely on my year-long experience as music lover/ journalist when I tell you that, if you're into the more extreme yet still melodic kinds of Metal, SRtK is one helluva band to follow! Just to show my well-earned appreciation of the band, I'll let you in on the fact that I enjoyed listening to the album for a whole week prior to starting to make this review (the info part), and then took some more time (miraculously given to me due to the fact that our editor-in-chief wad temporarily out of action) to ponder on the material and the words with which to express my love for SRtK! Last words: let's nominate Arcitects Of Perfections for inclusion of my “Best Albums Of 2011”-lists!!! 98/100 Tony. |
