Through the Eyes of the Dead – “Malice”

I’m a metal fan. While it’s not my primary genre of choice, there are certainly some metal records—from varying spokes under the umbrella—that I keep in heavy rotation for personal listening. Nothing is too heavy or too chaotic to turn me off without a trial. After that trial, though, it has to be good to win a position as anything but a shelf filler, and this album seems more apt at taking up space.

Malice is indeed a heavy record, with some very impressive drumming and some cool riffs here and there; musicianship and musicality are not in short supply throughout the eleven tracks. Still, after about two minutes into the opening track, my attention span was up for bidding. Why? Because this album is sort of boring.

Is anyone tired of this type of music yet? There are only so many thrashy drum beats that can be paired with pentatonic-based leads and relay any type of feeling. Tracks like “The Undead Parade” and “To The Ruins” are just too diluted with plain and constantly revisited metal elements to pack any punch—and a heavy record needs to be unforgettably ferocious to win my attention. It doesn’t help that Nate Johnson’s vocals have nearly zero dynamics, even considering his vocal style.

I’ll grant some credit to the people who like it—I think we all have certain discs in our libraries that we’d defend to the death if an Internet troll was trying to compromise its integrity. If you’re a fan of metal and can be won over with some talented playing and by-the-numbers riffing, this record may have staying power for you—hell, you might even love it. Personally, though, this effort just didn’t grab me in any way—and let’s be honest, most metal relies on an implicit sense of urgency to pick that heart rate up.

This album isn’t awful—not by any means—but it isn’t good either. Accordingly, Malice is destined to take up residency in my collection, and only be recalled the next time I move with an, “Oh yeah, that one…”  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. Failure In The Flesh
02. The Undead Parade
03. To Wage A War
04. A Catastrophe Of Epic Proportions
05. As Good As Dead
06. Welcome To Wasteland
07. Malice
08. To The Ruins
09. Dead End Roads
10. Interlude
11. Pull The Trigger

Run Time: 38:35
Release Date: 2007