The Human Abstract – Nocturne

When it comes to listening to new bands, I often have preconceived notions of what to expect. When I first looked at the cover of The Human Abstract I was almost positive I’d be listening to some crappy pop-rock band that would raise my blood pressure and rape my sense of hearing. But when I read the press package, it claimed that this is a metal band, but then I recalled that genres are constantly being mixed up because many people are stupid. But nonetheless I turned the cd on and was fairly impressed. The cd starts off kind of slow, but immediately turns into ripping guitar solos and wild double kick patterns. But then it becomes apparent that there’s something strange going on in their songs; I’d like to attribute that to the vocals. Usually when I listen to a metal band they have a pretty harsh growl for a voice, the vocals in this band aren’t quite a harsh growl and its accompanied by melodic singing. Lately it seems dozens of big bands are starting to take to incorporating melodic’s into their music, and honestly, I don’t like it very much. It gets even more disappointing when the band changing their style is very musically talented, and as I listen to the lead guitar just go nuts for every song, I keep looking up and agreeing with the rating I gave this cd. Yet, shortly after the guitar slows down and the vocals kick in, all that comes to mind is how much this band is reminiscent of Avenged Sevenfold(some guy from that band helped make or produce this album or something of the sort). One must understand that I despise AX7, as they are so affectionately titled by their internet going fans. But I digress, I must go back to hyping the rest of the band. The drummer is great, as I said he plays interesting patterns which I really enjoyed, mostly because I can’t play drums, therefore I appreciate drummers coordination. I didn’t hear much when it came to bass lines, the guitar overpowered it, but when a guy is soloing for most of a song it can be expected that everything else will be drowned out. I think that covers their sound.

If you read the paragraph before this one, it should be fairly obvious that my biggest disappointment was the way the vocals sounded, they just felt out of place. The lyrics are fairly negative as well, the press package I got with this cd described them as “dark.” With all these bands writing “dark” lyrics nowadays, it can be easily imagined what they’re like. But I suppose I’d recommend this album to someone who can appreciate musical compositions more than I can, apparently its very layered. Chances are if annoying melodic’s don’t creep into your head and drive you nuts you might like this album as well. But I can think of a few albums I’d be going out to buy before this one. Unless this band somehow broke up, and the lead guitarist ended up in a band with a different vocalist, I’d listen to that quite readily. I guess what I’ve tried to say for this whole review is that if the guitarist didn’t seem so good, this would have had a much worse rating.