To say that the market is saturated right now would be something of an understatement. Scan any social networking site like Myspace or Facebook and two things will become evident; almost every teenage girl is bi-sexual and every teenage metal fan is in a band. Just how true these claims are is open to debate but it’s an indisputable truth that there is more product to wade through these days than ever before. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to listen to all the stuff that would appeal to your musical taste, that’s if you could identify it all in the first place. Despite living in a digital age it’s never been harder for good bands to cut through all the crap and make that all important first impression. I’d never even heard Ektomorf via the traditional routes of tour support, free CD sampler or personal recommendation. As a result the only thing I recognized was the name and that’s a shame because on the evidence of this release they were worthy of some attention before this point in their 15 year history.
Just how much attention the band were worthy of depends upon your take on their blatant worship of Cavalera era Sepultura. If the Brazilians had wanted to make a seamless transition when Max left they could certainly have given Zoltan Farkas a call because his vocal resemblance is uncanny. The question is to what degree is it contrived? On balance I would say it probably isn’t. I mean the guy comes from Hungary and, as in the case of Cavalera; English is a language he has had to learn. Hell, a little research shows that the first three Ektomorf albums where even sung in Hungarian. OK, so what of the fact he writes songs based upon the typical Cavalera subjects of racism, alienation, hatred and revenge? Well these things aren’t peculiar to Brazil and being a gypsy I’m sure Farkas has suffered his share of these in modern day Hungary. At least the guy has a sense of humour, sporting a Sepultura shirt on his Myspace profile picture.
‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’ is an album packed with hate filled anthems as Ektomorf spit vitriol in the face of enemies real or imagined. It’s an angry album but it has one big problem; no standout tracks. Had a bad day at work, pissed off by your boss, teacher given you a detention for not handing in your homework on time, need to get rid of some aggression? Then put this on and headbang away but I guarantee you won’t be singing any of the songs after your anger is sated. ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’ is one of those albums that is bigger than the sum of its parts which is why I haven’t felt the need to name individual tracks or break it down on a music theory level. If this was a debut album I would say it showed tremendous potential but considering its their eighth studio recording I’ll just say its well played but one dimensional.
http://www.ektomorf.com
http://www.myspace.com/ektomorf
