By Andrew Flanagan

So very often, people get spurred to make their own art out of a love for specific artists or movements or genres, it forms the history-long chain of inspiration to creation. The guys in Green Day were big fans of the Clash, Soul Asylum loved the Replacements, and Gorgoroth read too much Tolkien.

Jagged Spiral love Motorhead, Guns ‘n Roses, Sabbath, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, and Iron Maiden, that much is clear. And they genuinely like this dark stuff…the bassist/singer is currently at work on The Demonslayer’s Handbook (just what it sounds like) and the band was initially formed in order to score a vampire movie. But influences shouldn’t have to be the nail in the coffin (ick pun).

The trouble begins when an artist isn’t channeling through a genre, but when they’re aiming at it. Jagged Spiral has their influences on their sleeves, but they seem too committed to these larger-than-life bands to break free of them and make something their own. The songs come off as exercises more than expressions, launch pads for metal posturing and dark lyrics.

The production quality of the record is unfortunately swampy, mostly on the bottom end. It’s normal for “darker” albums to have the vocals pushed back in the mix, but usually they’re screaming, not talking or whispering, and here it makes the vocals feel too buried. The kick drum sounds like a bottom register sine wave, and the bass is too far back to separate it from the low-end seepage.

I’m reminded of Nachtmystium (they of the neo-socialist dust-up somewhat cleared up), who had their roots in the sanctimonious underground of black metal, where artists are judged for their adherence to rather than expansion of the sound of the genre. But they went ahead and made a psych-prog black metal album anyways, and are currently being hailed for it by those very same naysayers. I would recommend the Spiral gang pick up some Electric Wizard and Harvey Milk records, listen, throw away, and keep at it.

www.jaggedspiral.com 

Filed under: Music Reviews