Artist: Interrogate
Title: Scarred For Life
Type: Album
Label: The Distortion Project
A nice debut album for you all here folks, full of that widely appreciated “modern metal” sound. Hailing from Northern Ireland, Interrogate are a hungry four piece, taking influences from all manner of different genres – though all of a more modern styling rather than any classic metal moments – and producing eight tracks collected here for your consideration. They can already boast of supporting home grown luminaries such as Panic Cell and Raging Speedhorn, and this is their first full lengther, the plushly produced “Scarred for Life”.
Something akin to the groove-laden post thrash approach of Machine Head meets the hardcore inflected, soulful touches of latter day The Haunted, Interrogate are going for the zeitgeist jugular. Crunching guitars, thrashy riffs and jarring rhythms collide with some hardcore styled mini-breakdowns and the now (sadly) obligatory elements of clean singing. An old, reactionary sod I may be, but to be honest you can take these nice, clean, smooth vocals and poke them up your well-oiled ring piece. This is the greatest element approaching a mis-step for these boys, who otherwise produce a pleasing, aggressive slab of modern metal, likely to appeal to the mainstream, Metal Hammer, Stone Sour listeners among you. The lads are at their best when going directly for the jugular, as with the incendiary “Vermin”, showcasing the more extreme, hoarse shouting style employed by front man Andy Campbell. Personally, the slower, more power-ballad tracks like “Fall From Grace” don’t do it for me, but there may be some of you more inclined to get your lighters out and sing the chorus back to the band than I am.
The production is nice and chunky, the aural equivalent of a nice warm beef stew, with the songs being similarly punchy and clearly the result of some honed song-writing skills. There’s not really anything here that stands out in the instrumentation stakes – it’s all a nice quality product, but without that killer touch that’s going to set the world on fire. That being said, this is a young band with undeniable talent, an admirable work ethic and a good, solid foundation for the future. It’s not an earth-shattering album by any stretch of the imagination, but this is worth picking up at the bargain price of £8, and – I would wager – probably a great band to see in the live environment.
http://www.myspace.com/interrogate
Chris Davison
MTUK HOME
