Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
This album is amazing. Done.
Just kidding, i'm going to talk about it. So, I downloaded a few Soilwork albums a long time ago and I put them on my iPod but I can't remember why I did either of those things considering I'd never listened to Soilwork when I downloaded them. Evidently, I was wrong to not listen to them based by the fact that i'm posting about them now.
I listened to this album a little bit last night and even more this morning, and it really made me realize that this band really knows what they're doing, and I'm ashamed it took me so long to get into them. There's a lot of greatness going on with this album, one of which being that this is the first album where you get a taste of the more alternative metal side rather than the melo-death side, which I think it's why I like it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of melo-death, but so much of it can wear you down, and I know that it does from experience, so a band going a bit of a 'lighter' way is definitely nice, especially for a band that can pull it off. There is a point in the album about halfway through where you say to yourself "man, this is really starting to kick off and sound great". I don't mean that in the sense that the album starts off boring, they just save more of the melodic / groovy riffs for later on, which is a fun concept to me, since I love being surprised with an album about halfway through. Makes the wait a little worthwhile. Ironically, one of my more favorite tracks on the album happens in the first half of the album. Like I said, I don't mean to say that the first half is boring, it's more of getting you ready for what is about to happen in the second half...
The second half of the album does have a little treat for those who are also a fan of Devin Townsend. Yes, that's right, I said Devin Townsend. He offers co vocals in both tracks
Black Star Deceiver, and
Soilworker's Song of the Damned. Honestly, what more could I say? That alone is enough to give this album at least a chance...
My opinion on the band as a whole? I think Soilwork deserve more recognition than they have right now. Maybe I just don't see the attention for them, but I really don't see their name popping up in most conversations about heavy metal in general, and that's a shame. They're definitely up there with being one of the better melo-death bands right now.