Writing and recording a follow-up album to one that should have
\nbroken a band is a daunting task. This can be especially true when
\nthere’s an obsessed listener out there that possesses the power of
\nthe pen.<\/p>\n
In the case of the Norwegian hardcore punk band Amulet, its
\nrecent third full-length release
\nDanger! Danger!<\/i> finds itself in the position of cultivating
\nthe band’s hardcore bad boy image. Where the band’s sophomore
\neffort
\nFreedom Fighters<\/i> had lead singer Torgny Amdam mixing in
\nsmall doses of melody to supplement his temperamental rage on
\nstage, it became obvious that he was still pretty damn adept at
\nplaying the part of the antagonizing voice of the band; that is,
\nthe voice that every hardcore punk band needs and which fits Amulet
\nlike a form-fitting glove.<\/p>\n
So after giving
\nFreedom Fighters<\/i> and Amulet’s first album
\nThe Burning Sphere<\/i> homes in my CD changer for the better
\npart of the past year or so, I spent the last three months trying
\nto get my hands on this album. Not an easy task when the band’s
\nwebpage was being overhauled, negating the obvious information
\nflow. Turns out this album was released in Norway first back in
\nearly October with a broader European release only scheduled for
\nlast week. Perseverance paid off for me by way of a friend of mine
\nin Sweden mailing me this album the week it came out. (If you’re
\nreading this, Jorgen, I thank you once again!)<\/p>\n
Well, the album jacket has individual photo shots of the five
\nguys in the band sporting bloody noses, battered eyes, and cut
\nlips. This leaves me a believer that this quintet has understood
\nthe importance of bringing the street credibility factor into the
\nequation, but you might be asking yourself, are the songs equal to
\nthe task?<\/p>\n
I’ve got to be honest and say that after a month of spinning
\nDanger! Danger!<\/i> I’m finding it’s a mixed bag we’ve got
\nhere.<\/p>\n
The first single “Breaking News” benefits from several split
\ntempos and the anchor of drummer Jonas Thire’s backbeat procession.
\n“Nine Lives” would be the better choice in my book, though, with
\nthe searing opening guitar work from Lars Rasmussen and Espen
\nFollestad complementing the spastic vocals of Amdam. It’s the
\nlit-match syndrome here, as the axe-work more than ignites Amdam to
\nhyperactively resonate at his best.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the other songs on
\nDanger! Danger!<\/i> don’t inspire the same way as the songs
\nabove. Maybe it’s because there’s actually too much change in the
\ntempo, if that’s possible. Remember, we’ve got five battered guys
\nstaring us in the face in the album jacket and hard-core shouldn’t
\nteeter with the perception of coming off as medium-core, if you
\nknow what I mean.<\/p>\n
That being said, the songs on
\nDanger! Danger!<\/i> don’t suck, but they don’t create any
\nlasting identity for themselves in the way that many of the songs
\non
\nFreedom Fighters<\/i> did. The bridge work on songs such as the
\ntitle track makes the music just accessible enough to create broad
\nappeal and the overall structures of the songs don’t suffer from
\nsimplicity. I just think it’s that songs like “Money to Burn” or
\n“Revengeful” have large portions where Amdam is too melodic in his
\nlyrical approach.<\/p>\n
Amulet will probably find themselves knocking down new walls and
\nbuilding their base to larger audiences in certain circles around
\nthe world with this release. Columbia Records, I am sure, will see
\nto that. With my admitted fanaticism for Amulet’s prior releases, I
\nwas just hoping that this would be the album to take the band one
\nstep higher in my book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":26529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6942],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37768","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-amulet","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37768"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}