Chuck Schuldiner Project

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Lifeboat

Lifeboat is essentially five finger death punch with breakdowns and no clean vocals. Putting things as nice as I can, the breakdowns completely trash the song wherever they are used. Yeah, they're heavy, but for god's sakes guys, how many other bands used the exact same chugging breakdown format. For deathcore artists, sure, go ahead and chug away, make the majority of your albums breakdown if thats what it takes to be "brutal"; but when you deliver such great riffs everywhere else, throwing a breakdown in for brutality's sake is just angering.

Lifeboat's guitar is killer, the guitar tones are set somewhere close to the tone of Five Finger Death Punch's The Way of the Fist. All of the solos on this album seem to be much stronger than that of Five Finger Death Punch, but the "melodic riffs" are pretty traditional metal-core, and to a large degree inferior. These riffs are exactly what I'd expect from a typical "scene kid" metal-core band, people underrate them, but they're still pretty cliched. Rhythm guitar gets really great at times though, with a guitar tone that feels perfect for the rest of the song, its heavy and a bit fuzzy, but it can also be a bit bland and seem like one note chugging with some rhythm. ...And then that brings me to the chugging, and the breakdowns; Lifeboat seems to limit this BS to less than 40 seconds of "br00tality" per song, but is it really necessary? Lifeboat established so much with the lead guitar, and even some pretty decent rhythm guitar when it isn't heavily reminiscent of what a hundred other guys before them did, but the chugging and breakdowns just suck. But I guess the chugging is fast and I can't find the exact same breakdown by clicking a random death-core song in itunes, so its a forgivable offense.

The drums are really good for metal-core standards, during the breakdowns the cymbals are still completely overused, but clearly, the drummer knows what he's doing otherwise, with some really sick tricks with the double bass drum that makes it seem like they're fading in and out, and while that might be a studio trick, its pretty cool. The drums are generally synched well with everything else and add some impact, but they don't seem to be repeating the same pattern over and over and over. 

The vocals are done well enough, but they sound a bit raspy at times, but typically really good, capturing a similar sound that Five Finger Death Punch uses that's almost disturbing. It sounds more like the vocalist is in pain rather than trying to scream his lungs out until he pukes blood. In some ways, it can feel like a more emotional experience, in some ways less. One final comment, "gang singing" is fine if you use it less than twice per song, any more and it sounds gimmicky.

Lifeboat's effort isn't a bad one, they just chose to use a really cliched and stale element (breakdowns) which severely impacted the flow of what would have been an otherwise very good metal offering. I'm sure everything could have been done a bit better, vocals could be a bit more consistent, riffs could hit harder, and the drums could be more complex, but these are all things that should come to Lifeboat and they develop as musicians, but if they were to replace the chugging with say, chainsaw riffs or a a solo played on the lower notes, nothing would feel as interrupted. 

7.25/10
http://www.myspace.com/lifeboat519

3 comments:

  1. I love 5FDP so I checked this out. These guys sound NOTHING like Five Finger Death Punch, and the solos are horrible. You're comparing complete amateurs to the break through metal band of the last 5 years. I'm shocked that you even mentioned them in the same league. The riffs are second hand ATR and Killswitch, Unearth and Atreyu knockoffs.

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  2. I have to disagree with the previous poster. They sound an awful lot like Five Finger Death Punch to me. I would say that they actually sound more enjoyable than Five Finger Death Punch

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  3. "the guitar tones are set somewhere close to the tone of Five Finger Death Punch's The Way of the Fist. All of the solos on this album seem to be much stronger than that of Five Finger Death Punch,"

    The tones are close, listen to them, they arent a perfect match, but they are frequently similar. 35 seconds into keeping distance, look it up, not only is it inherently more interesting than 5fdp's "scale like" solos (salvation / place to die come to mind) but it just sound to be more well executed to me.

    "These riffs are exactly what I'd expect from a typical "scene kid" metal-core band, people underrate them, but they're still pretty cliched. Rhythm guitar gets really great at times though, with a guitar tone that feels perfect for the rest of the song, its heavy and a bit fuzzy, but it can also be a bit bland and seem like one note chugging with some rhythm."

    I mention the generic scene kid metalcore riffing (atreyu etc.), then I proceed to trash on them for using breakdowns.

    In short, if you read the whole review, I don't put them in the same league. They aren't even in the same genre, so you should have had the sense to not look them up if atreyu isn't your thing (not mine either).

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