MADE OF HATE - review added 31st August 2010
Album Review: Pathogen (2010)
For fans of: Heavy Metal... and good vs., er, interesting
Made Of Hate - Radek Polrolniczak on vocals, Michal Kostrzynski on guitar and backing vocals, Jarek Kajszczak on bass, and Tomek Grochowski on drums - hail from Poland. Their debut album “Bullet In Your Head”, which helped win them a deal with German label AFM, came out a couple of years back.
Pathogen is the follow-up, and marks an unusual change in the band's ranks. Radek Polrolniczak moves from rhythm guitar to lead vocals, and Michal Kostrzynski, whilst continuing lead guitar and all songwriting duties, steps into the backing vocal slot. It's not quite clear what the reasoning behind the move was.
To my ears Radek is a slight improvement over Michal, but equally Michal was very characterful. Radek sounds suspiciously like the lead singer of Finnish Eurovision winning act Lordi - very deep, gravelly, and with an overriding sensation the man is gargling bulldozers. With repeated listens you get used to his style, but even now I wouldn't call him a great vocalist.
Fortunately, the musicianship is much better. These guys can play in a big way. The rhythms are as boisterous as an upset grizzly bear, and the guitars are off-the-scale good. They vary between the massively heavy and the infinitely beautiful. Some of the solos on the album are astonishing. The songs as a whole are a tad samey, but they definitely have a weird charm. The dark metal-balled 'You, Departed' is the most memorable of the lot. Whether that's for good or bad reasons I'm still not 100% sure.
As a whole this is a good(ish) album, but it's definitely going to be an acquired taste. The musicianship should find no detractors anywhere, but the song construction and (especially the) singing are very much from the love/hate side of town. I recommend you have a listen to samples of this first to see if you like it or not. It really is that much of a hard call!
Check out... The musicianship.
Track List:
01. Friend
02. Russian Roulette
03. You, Departed
04. I Can't Believe
05. Lock'n'Load
06. Pathogen
07. False Flag
08. Questions
Label: AFM Records
Artist's website(s): Made Of Hate | MySpace | Facebook
