Failure of State by San Francisco death/thrash band Absolute Darkness. I am not sugar-coating this overview and should you choose to listen to this entire album, which I advocate regardless, you will see why.
Let’s get to this little nugget… oh dear!
Likes:
A couple of good riffs.
Dislikes:
Exteeeeeeeeeeeeeeended vooooooooooooooocal noooooooooooooootes! The vocals are dreadful and consist primarily of extended notes and almost death-style spoken word, and I could be mistaken, but as a side note, it sounds like an 8-song political message as well. I keep saying it, your vocals have to be fantastic! Great vocals will make your album listenable even if the music is average. In this case though, the music is average and the vocals are way below average, so this is a double whammy! The album is saturated with mid-paced double bass drumming and single strum chord guitaring, especially the 2nd half of the record (side 2 if you will). This is boring thrash music with way below average death vocals. It’s just not good.
In conclusion:
Failure of State has probably shot to no. 1 in the Worst Albums Reviewed charts. The music is boring and lacks creativity. The vocals are… well… below average is possibly a little generous. And what is so perplexing, is that this is their 3rd full-length release, yet they sound like a band who has not even recorded a demo or had any guidance yet, the only thing better about this release is the production and sound. I don’t get it. As much as I don’t like analogies, the best way to describe Failure of State is…
The person who gets the wooden spoon award at Idols because their mother told them they were a good singer, when plain and simply, they weren’t.
Is it worth a listen? It would be interesting to see after listening to the entire album (if you’re able to sit through it) whether you agree with me or not. So for that reason then yes. Would I listen to this? The multiple times I did for this review, has sadly taken time out of my life that could’ve been spent discovering excellence. There are thousands of bands to listen to in one’s lifetime, and I am therefore constantly searching for that excellence, so having to sit through something like this multiple times…? And that is where I will leave this.
Til next time.
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