Hard 20 |
GZR"Ohmwork" GZR, the side project of legendary Black Sabbath bassist Terry "Geezer" Butler, releases its third outing, having made two other albums in the mid 90s. The first one featured the vocal talents of Fear Factory's Burton C. Bell, but he only sang on that debut, and was replaced by Clark Brown, who sings on this one. Geezer and his cronies do their thing of combining elements of classic and modern style metal. There's plenty of classic style riffing on every song (but no solos unfortunately), but the vocals are "aggro"-style, like Pantera, Machine Head, et al, with angst a-plenty, and the instruments are all tuned down. The songs range from full throttle metal tunes like "Aural Sects", "Pseudocide", and "Pull The String", to slower, darker, Tool-ish numbers like "Pardon My Depression" and "I Believe". Another song, "Alone", is very Sabbath influenced, while "Prisoner 103" reminded me of Drowning Pool and other nu-metal bands. Of course it goes without saying that Geezer himself is one of the all time greats, without whom metal as we know it would not exist today. His work with his side project, however, just doesn't blow me away. It's decent enough but nothing to write home about. It's basic rock/metal, that uses the styles of both past and present, but it's nothing that hasn't been done before. |