REBELS WITHOUT APPLAUSE - review added 9th September 2009
Album Review: Low End Head Stomp (2009)
For fans of: Alt Metal... and Little Shop Of Horrors
Chicago metallers Rebels Without Applause have been treading the boards for a few years and have 2 releases to their names: The Rip-Hop, Soulcore, Crush EP and this, Low End Head Stomp, their first full-length studio album.
The band have shared a stage with such diverse acts as Mudvayne, Soil, Disturbed, Black Label Society, Shadows Fall, Stone Sour, Lacuna Coil, Stuck Mojo, D.O.P.E., Vanilla Ice, Insane Clown Posse and more, and on the evidence of the music they're pumping out theirs no reason for their march forwards to stop.
The line-up is Greg Fulton (vocals and guitar), Mark Alano (guitar), Kevin Lindsey (bass) and Tony Heath (drums). Greg has a brilliantly characterful voice - he's somewhere between Levi Stubbs doing the voice of Audrey II in the Little Shop Of Horrors film and Killswitch Engage vocalist Howard Jones. Add a dose of Zakk Wylde's Southern grit and you're just about there. He's never going to take the lead male role in Carmina Burana but his voice is utterly perfect for this nail-in-a-baseball-bat approach to metal.
The music itself is powerful and accessible and features a good selection of earth shattering beats and monumental riffs. It's heavy, but the thing that catches your attention is the sheer loudness of it all. They really are f*cking generous with the decibels! The styles get mixed and shaken as the record progresses. There's full-house metal, rap, Deep-South rock and all sorts of dalliances with crossover stylings. It's held together with excellent musicianship and those fantastic vocals. The only real down point is the annoying 'Shout Outs'...but think of that as an easily ignorable bonus track and it's not a problem.
Best track awards go to the rap-infused 'Weak' and the groovy 'Sublime', although the remainder of the album is remarkably consistent. There's a heavy nod to Pantera throughout and, whilst Rebels Without Applause aren't quite up to the standard of that seminal metal act, they aren't far behind.
Check out... Greg Fulton's excellent gob-musings.
Track List:
01: My Success
02: Rain Or Shine
03: Weak
04: Someday
05: Sublime
06: Shallow Genius
07: Paperthin
08: Chalkline
09: I Don't Wanna Know
10: Shout Outs
Artist's website(s): MySpace
