King Parrot : "A Young Person's Guide to King Parrot"

Things have changed for this band after being on tour with the likes of Pantera. The band's first album, I could not get past the vocals, and this time around, the vocals work for me as they are not just a shrieking like The Body, but balanced with a more powerful growl. Plenty confrontational but more refined, and following a song structure in this evolution from being a more spastic grind core band, to more of a death metal band, I guess we can say death grind, as their is more emphasis on the riffs. 

The higher snarled vocals are still present and trade off with the lower death metal vocals. They throw themselves into a more punk thrashing for "It's a Rort". The best part of the song is when they hit the more thrashing hook of a riff, though the general vibe is frantic. At almost three and a half minutes, this an epic for these guys. They throw blast beats into things. The cops show up in the middle of the song before they go into a hardcore riff.  "Punish the Runt" blasts ahead in a more in-your-face fashion. There is a guitar solo that adds to the layer of sound, but it's pretty much just a punk pounder. There is a cool riff that crops up in it, but the rule here has always been "cool riffs alone do not a good song make". 

"Target Pig Elite" has more of a stomp to it. It is the sound of giving your middle finger to the "pig elite". Impressive drumming. The drummer goes in a more thrashing punk direction for the way "I Got the Right" attacks. "Look Away, I'm Hideous" follows a similar direction as the previous song. "Glazed and Diseased in Defeat". balances out the chaos with more deliberate riffing. They have learned they need the riffs that might appeal to a Pantera fan, but are not giving up on grind-core. I'll give this album an 8, as it is an improvement over what I recall hearing from them before this era. 

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Soulfly : " Archangel"

Welcome to Max Cavalera's mid-life crisis. In trying to be relevant he has enlisted the who's who of grind-core to guest on this album. So here we go the opener "We Sold Our Souls For Metal" sounds very punk for someone who has sold their soul for metal. Not terrible songwriting, not compelling either. The title track has more of the Sepultura stomp to it. The guitar gets weird and technical over parts and it sounds a little out of place. But this is darker than the first song. There is a grim atmosphere lingering in the background that casts a nice cloud on this one. Granted I have listened to more Sepultura than I have Soulfly as their first album was the only I paid attention to. "Sodomites" seems like an odd topic for an album without Rob Halford on it. Instead they opt for Todd Jones from Nails. Its a decent song, feels a little like Godflesh until it speeds up into more punk section.

"Ishtar Rising" focuses on the groove. It's not unlike some of the songs on the Fear Factory I reviewed last week, which funny enough their bassist left to join. Is Fear Factory bigger than Soul Fly? Pretty straight forward this one almost borders on nu-metal. Matt Young  from King Parrot , who might have one of the most annoying voices in metal is on the cartoonish thrash of "Live Live Hard". The riff in the verse is not too shabby. "Shamash" starts off on a good foot and then the repetitive groove kinda loses me, its not a bad riff I just tuned it out after a while. 'Bethlehem's Blood" sound like an extension of the previous song at first. Good thing they had trumpets to clear that up. The riffs are very similar not a good move to put these two back to back. The strummed guitar is way cooler than the chug overload.

"Titans" switches it up on the chanted chorus that comes close to being sung, its also one of a few moments where I begin to wonder if Max has been listening to Behemoth. They blast off into one of the album's fastest songs "Deciever". It's pretty much what you would expect from them thrashing out. They keep thrashing on the Game of Thrones inspired song "Mother of Dragons" which has his whole clan going in provide vocals. While I like the darker direction they seem to be going in for an album that is supposed to be their shortest album at 38 minutes , but it felt long to me. Overall it works more than it doesn't , so I will give it a 6 and speculate that is would bring them a step closer to a Sepultura reunion.
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