Roadrunner United
"The Allstar Sessions"
Rating:
Reviewed by:
Beppo Blitzkrieg
What the hell is this? “Roadrunner United”? It sounds like the name of one of those pansy soccer teams they have in England or some shit. Hold on. There’s a goddamn manual here too. (I fucking hate manuals. What am I, a goddamn housewife?) Ah, OK. This is a CD with people from bands who are on Roadrunner’s label, all getting together like a bunch of happy campers on a field trip, swapping members between bands and shit. Swingers on drugs or some shit. People from Slipknot, Fear Factory, King Diamond, Type O Negative, Opeth, Killswitch Engage, Annihilator, Machine Head and whole lot of other bands I’m too damn drunk to list, all playing with each other on original material – NEVER BEFORE HEARD BY MANKIND! (I added that shit – I should write these damn promo ads.)
Where was I? Right, put the damn thing in the player. Oops… Nevermind. (Motherfucker.) “Play”. No?
Yeah! Motherfucker! Here we go!
YEAH! Find me a mosh pit and stomp me cross-eyed! This first track, “The Dagger”, has Howard Jones from Killswitch belting it out! I don’t know if this is supposed to be nu-metal, but it kicks ass! Cool guitars from Machine Head’s Flynn, a pumping bass, and then just fucking mayhem in the chorus! And the guitar solo from that Annihilator-guy, Waters, just flies like a damn bullet through my brain!
There are so many songs on this that I don’t know what to do. I am running like some goddamn special child between shiny objects here.
Next up is “The Enemy” with good old Dino from Fear Factory. I am so fucking psyched he’s back in the band, and this song is even better than the first one. Insane! Hunter from Chimaira is doing a really good job screaming himself raw, and the overall pounding carnage is amazing! There are real riffs here! Remember riffs? That’s what used to carry a metal song from start to finish, before all this emo core shit took over. Riffs! Guitars that you can actually HEAR! Not just muted shit over and over. RIFFS, MOTHERFUCKER!
Aarrgh! I am going to pass the hell out! What is this shit? “Annihilated by the Hands of God”! That’s a title for you, kids! It’s fucking great! Joey Jordison from Slipknot and Steve DiGiorgio from every band in the world kick up this frantic rhythm that sounds like a goddamn demon-driven locomotive on crack that is gonna run you down and run you over like a scared little badger in the night, and… yeah... like being annihilated by the hands of God! This is exactly what that must feel like. Not some goddamn pussy God either. Big bad ass God with a big hammer and shit. YEAH! Fuck me! This is friggin’ awesome. Benton from Deicide sounds like he’s gonna kill you with his voice.
And here’s the best track so far - “Into the Fire” with King motherstomping Diamond on vocals. Damn, I can’t take all this. It says on here that this guy from Trivium, Heafy, wrote the song, and man did he do a good job! This is better than anything King Diamond (the band) has managed to whip together in over a decade or so. Maybe King should start working with Trivium instead? This could have been an amazing track on any old school KD album. Great solos on here too from the Trivium guys, and the drummer from Ill Nino does an amazing job. He even does the trademark Mikkey thing on the ride.
And on and on it goes, like a relentless thunderstorm in my head. I get swooped up by the softer “The End”, shot farther upward by Keith Caputo in “Tired’n’lonely”, and then finally hurled to the ground by Max Cavalera, Robert Flynn and Jeff Waters in “Independent”. The solo is once again so fucking great I am crying like a baby. It could be the drugs talking, but fuck me silly if Jeff Waters isn’t one of the most underrated guitarists in this messed up world.
There are some odd ducks on here that I don’t know whether to love or hate. Dani Filth brings on motherfucking Satan in “Dawn of a Golden Age”, again written by Trivium’s Heafy. A multi talented motherfucker it seems! It’s about time we get some motherfucking devilry here! Yeah! Suffocation’s Mike Smith blasts away like he was auditioning for some Norwegian goatkissers! I’m gonna stomp like a goddamn lunatic all night to this! Moth-er-fuck-er!
Another quirky tune is “The Rich Man” with Corey Taylor droning on and on about God knows what, and then also “No Way Out”, which is a little too emo for me. It is probably the only song I would go take a piss during. That guy from Glassjaw sings as if his balls were about to drop any second, and being all scared and shit about it. Sissy mary motherfucker! I want to beat you to death with this fucking board, you faggot maggot!
Pant, pant… Gotta… take… pill…
Errghll…
Mother… Zzz… Fucker… Zzzz…
Zzzzzz…
ZZzzzz…. Er? Still here? Motherfuckers…
What did I miss? “Baptized in Redemption” is kinda standard sounding. Just tune into Headbanger’s Ball on any given night (whenever the fuck it’s on – it sucks so why should I know?) and copy and paste. Speaking of odd shit. The guy from Opeth is having some kind of acoustic guitar synthesized fuckfest with Josh from Type O Negative on “Roads”. I am not so sure I know what the hell is going on here, but it is very soothing, and I... think… Zzzzz… Zzzzz… Fuckers… Mommy? What is that Mommy? Who is that man with you, Mommy? No! Mommy! It hurts! MO… Eh? Fuck me, I need help.
“Blood and Flames” sounds exactly like a quality Danzig tune, again by that motherfucker from Trivium… Heafy. He is starting to piss me off. Rubbing in it everybody’s face how fucking versatile and shit he is. Who the fuck is Trivium anyway? Maybe he should write some good shit for his band instead of being all superior and shit on this damn Roadrunner shit.
“Constitution Down” has a lot of my favorite dudes on it! James Murphy, Andy La Rocque, Joey Jordison and Steve Di Giorgio. How’s that for a supergroup? Huh? Huh? How IS that for a supergroup? Damn, I would buy an album with just the four of THEM doing THIS! The guy singing is from a band called Floodgate. Could it be THE Floodgate? The superfamous world superstar spangled band Floodgate? No? You haven’t heard about them either? Ignorance is piss. (Edited to add: I had one million fucking e-mails about this, from people wailing like menstruating banshees about me not knowing that the singer is Kyle Thomas from Exhorder. See, i don't even have to research. I'm Muhammed, you're the fucking mountain. You come to me.)
Punk ass motherfucker! Graves, from one or the other countless incarnations of Misfits, punks it out in “I Don’t Wanna Be a Superhero”, and it is at least as good as anything that group ever recorded! Never liked them. This is better. Kickass! Short and sweet! Who wrote it? Yeah, you guessed it… Heafy. I’m gonna beat his ass now. Who does he think he is? The motherfucking DaVinci of Metal? “Look at me, I’m so talented, and you’re all so beneath me.” What the fuck ever!
“Army of the Sun” has that droning sound again, as if they were trying to grunge it out, but it is pretty cool. I love this fucking chorus! This song features a bunch of people you have never heard of, except Flynn from Machine Head, of course.
“No Mas Control” is pretty cool and thrashy with a nu-metallic kinda emo shit chorus that they could have flushed, come to think of it. Not so very good, but interesting to see arch enemies Soulfly and Sepultura members on the same track (not Cavalera though – Kisser and Dias).
Last time I saw Peter Steele he was downing one bottle of red wine after another, drugged out of his mind and wiping the blood from his coke-ruptured nose on a dirty sleeve to DEVO’s Greatest Hits, while wondering where the hell he was. Now he’s here. It is a Type O kinda song that Jordison wrote, and they have put so many effects on Steele’s voice that it could be any motherfucker doing the vocals. Anybody in for a dead pool? I have Peter Steele as the next rockstar biting the dust. I know, the odds are low, but what the fuck. It is also the last song on the CD.
I fucking loved this album. I will listen to this while going absolutely fucking nuts in traffic as often as I can. The perfect soundtrack to road rage, if there ever was one! And there is enough different shit going on here for anybody to get their fill of whatever makes them come in each other’s mouths, a little…
Roadrunner used to be great in the 80’s. You could pretty much buy anything that had that red and white Roadrunner logo on the back of the cover and be fucking blown away. Not so very much lately. They have been the worst fucking label in America, getting all up in nu-metal’s shit, for the last six years or so. Maybe they are growing a new set of big, hairy, balls with this roster, and this album. Fucking awesome job by everybody involved, and recorded brilliantly with perfect production. Heafy from Trivium gets the Golden Star for putting everybody in their motherfucking place..
Buy this motherfucking album!
I’m hitting “repeat” and zoning out. Fuck off.
- Beppo Blitzkrieg
Artwork used with permission from Neverland Music Inc.
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