Thursday, December 5, 2013

Hellyeah - Band of Brothers

Someone told me that this was worse than Damageplan, and I had to scratch that itch and share my suffering.

The second best band on a supergroup's resume is Damageplan, whose guitarist was shot by one of their fans. His brother's reaction was apparently to form a band that couldn't possibly have any fans, beyond some Pantera loyalists who still aren't aware that the 90s ended. The formula is to combine two really shitty Dimebag wannabes who dumb down groove riffs until they don't have any groove left, just chugga-chugga, and add a nu-metal vocalist with a particularly strained shout. Worse, he does even more singing in an alt hard rock radio voice, which sounds like that guy trying to karaoke Puddle of Mudd but not really trying to hit more than two or three notes. This album is a constant battle of who is worse - the vocalist or the guitarists. I'm leaning towards the guitarists, because their riffs and solos literally sound like they read text transcriptions of Dimebag's work and played it - dun, dun dow-wow. dun, dun dow-wow. WAAAAaaaaaAAHHHHAHHHHHHH widdly doodillydoodily waaAAAAHHH diddlydiddlydooooo~~~~~~ At least Vinnie Paul knows how to groove along to a riff on drums, but they don't give him much to work with.

The lyrics are the focal point of the band. They don't just write songs about getting drunk, they write songs about getting "Drink Drank Drunk" or as we call it, getting stupid drunk - they really do the first part convincingly! The first lyrics of the album are "My war! Life's to short to be sober!" - yeah, and the world is too small to not be shouting. There is one more thoughtful song called "WM Free" about the West Memphis Three, where it's the thought that counts. Give this band the same courtesy, it's the thought that counts. They're so bad that you can take a few minutes to have a laugh at their expense, even though you probably won't make it through a full song without turning it off.

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