Average Rating: 2
Demo Title: Red Death
Band Members: Daran Amos, Rick Land, Joe Panaccione, Bob Beird.
Location: Wilmington, Delaware
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There are currently 1 Reviews of this Demo.
Average Rating: 2 |
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Band Name: Thunderbrew
Demo Title: Red Death Band Members: Daran Amos, Rick Land, Joe Panaccione, Bob Beird. Location: Wilmington, Delaware |
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Redwolff's Review:
It isn't often that I am asked to review a demo CD, but this one was foisted upon me by our esteemed editor for one reason: these guys are from my home town. That's right, I was born in a since-demolished hospital (when they made me, they broke the hospital) in Wilmington, Delaware. Dela-where? you may be asking. Better you should ask Dela-why? Wilmington was the site of my prep-school education/adolescent drug use and source of two of my tattoos, and that's about all it was good for. Believe you me, I wasted little time getting out of there once I had sucked dry the teat of my childhood nourishment (sorry, there's a cow on TV). Delaware, if it's known for anything, is known for DuPont, tax-free shopping and just about every credit card offer you've ever received. It isn't known for metal. It probably won't be thrust into that particular spotlight due to this band.Before I even listened to the CD, I checked out the website to find out which band member plays which instrument, information which was not forthcoming. While looking for said information I couldn't help but notice that the welcome page for their site is a picture of the band members flipping the bird at the viewer. Inside the site, there's an elaborate photomontage of more classic middle-finger moments with everyone in the band and various random people, under the heading, "Fingers." I thought metal bands gave the horns, not the bird - does this make them a 'heavy middle' band? (Thank you, I'm here all week.) I don't know why you'd want to include this on your website, a big Fuck You to all the people taking an interest in your band. How is that good PR?
The best thing I can say about Thunderbrew is that the singer has a strong, Ozzy/Layne Staley voice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad things I can say about this demo, one of which is the distractingly poor production job that makes the drumkit sound as if the drummer is using practice pads - and I am not exaggerating about this. Even with my portable CD player on the 'X-Bass' setting, the drums make nothing more than a flat "bap-bap-bap" sound, something that is really difficult to get past. The guitar solos are so old-skool it's almost painful, and not helped by the fact that they sometimes push the beat. The beginning of track 3 has a weird extra drumbeat every few measures that almost sounds like a drum machine is skipping. The band is not always in time, the key is not always found. Basically, despite being together since 1997, the band is not tight at all, and it sounds like they tore through this demo quickly and without much practise at the songs. This is an eleven-song demo, and I think that was just too much; the band should have really shined up their best songs, five or six at maximum, and presented those in a quality-produced package. The instrumental track 6 is pretty good, and track 7 is the most interesting from a songwriting point of view... at that point the demo seems to be looking up, but then track 8 goes a little nuts with the beat again and destroys the groove they had going.
The band has promise, but the drummer needs to pay attention to the beat, the singer needs to concentrate on hitting his notes, and the guitarist should update his solo technique - it's not the 80's anymore. They absolutely should not go back to the same studio in Newark (that's New-Ark, Delaware, not Nuwirk, New Jersey) for their next demo. I'd be very interested to hear what they could do if they really tried and had a good sound engineer behind them. Come on guys, let's put Wilmington on the map for metal!
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