Every few weeks, our fearless leader and editor Jason sends out a batch of emails from PR firms and publicists pimping the latest wares from their stable of artists. One of these caught my eye – a heavy metal tribute to Frank Sinatra.
I love Frank. He’s been a regular in my musical world since childhood.
I love metal. I am a lifelong metalhead.
So my thought was, this sounds great for me. The concept sounds fun, I’ll give it a shot. The press materials listed a great lineup of artists, consisting of many metal icons from bands such as Anthrax, Queensryche, Kiss, and Deep Purple to name a few. Many singers and musicians whose work I respect and know well were on board. Sounds great!
Well, the talent was on board, the spirit of honoring The Chairman was probably genuine, but the execution is a complete disaster. From the first track, it was an exercise in patience to let any of the tracks play through. The arrangements are completely generic and indistinguishable from one song to the next. They just meld together in a tedious slagheap of shitty, generic riffs. Apparently zero effort was made to metallize the original Nelson Riddle arrangements, so they just heaped on the guitars and screamed the vocals over them. Not one note, not one bar is recognizable as derived from the original songs. I’m not going to comment on any particular songs because they are all terrible and unworthy of attaching Frank’s name to them. The artists involved should be embarrassed to perpetrate such a half-assed fiasco. Instead of honoring Frank’s legacy, they pretty much pissed on it.
A pathetic hack job. An embarrassment. Complete and utter crap.
I wish I had something more cogent to offer in my criticism, but this album isn’t worth the effort.
