The Bad Penny (beta)

Artist: Apocalyptica
Album: 7th Symphony
Label: Jive
Release date: August 24

Not all wines – or bands – get better with age. In March 1997, I had the honor of witnessing the first-ever U.S. live performance by Apocalyptica, opening for the Breeders at New York’s Irving Plaza. Jaws dropped as the Finnish cellists thrashed through spot-on covers of Metallica songs, snapping enough strings to make John Williams cry. Thirteen years later, Apocalyptica are technically still here – although their end may actually have arrived years ago. 7th Symphony continues a sad, five-year progression that has found them recruiting stock vocalists – including, this time around, a downright WTF entry: Gavin Rossdale – for cliché-ridden nü-metal garbage. Blame the Jive A&R guy maybe, but it’s hard to understanding why groveling to modern-rock radio would be a priority for anyone anymore. Beyond those three polluted tracks (the one with Gojira’s Joseph Duplantier gets a bye), the remaining eight are instrumentals that overshadow what originally made Apocalyptica distinct – the acoustic cellos – with excessive doses of electric guitar. The end result is a brand of cheap, histrionic metal that will make mainstreamers long for Trivium’s “The Crusade.” Metallica have found a way to be good again. Apocalyptica, can’t you do the same?

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This entry was posted on 09/05/2010 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Apocalyptica, Gojira, Metallica, the Breeders, Trivium. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.