Yet another dose of melodic death thrash comes our way in the shape of Dutch quintet Fuelblooded. Evidently heavily influenced by the mystifyingly bizarre success of Trivium, ‘Off the Face Of The Earth’ is the follow up to 2006 debut ‘Inflict the Inevitable’, and indeed that is exactly what they have done. With a few line-up changes for this release, one can only hope that there is a little something here to raise it above the mediocre.
The first thing that is evident is that new vocalist Peter Brinkman has a reasonable set of pipes on him, nothing exceptional, but he does a very passable growl when he gets going, and his clean singing voice is powerful and tuneful, as is immediately evident on opening track ‘The End Starts Here’. The guitar riffs are the usual fare of atonal widdling, however guitarists Michiel Rutten and Danny Tunker do manage to keep things vaguely interesting with some good solos and minor moments of shreddery. ‘Discontinued Dormancy’ picks up the pace a bit, with a riff that carries a good dose of purpose, whilst Brinkman exercises his growl to good effect, and the overall impression is of Trivium in bed with Soilwork, heavy petting over the top of clothes. ‘When Passion Dies’ sounds just like a bit of a lazy mess, with generic vocals, lazy drums and an instantly forgettable chorus; the only saving grace being a nice solo out of the Megadeth playbook, (from somewhere in their missable mid 2000 period). Things take a more promising turn with ‘Recipe for Demise’, which starts with some good healthy chugging guitars, before Brinkman wheels out the growl again, and he really carries that off well, but his clean vocal in the chorus…I can’t decide whether they are very good or awful. It carries that kind of power rock inflection that, dependant upon the voice and the music, is either spellbinding or stomach churning.
‘The Cult Of Ego’ has a 2 minute lead-in which works very well, before it descends horribly into an abyss of Trivium style proportions, and is best skipped. The title track has a slower and more determined pace about it, sounding a bit like a later Poisonblack track, but don’t hold that against them; it’s really not bad at all. ‘The Wrath of A’ath’ is best said with a slight lisp, and is an ok instrumental, although you have to wonder why the guys didn’t take the opportunity to go a bit nuts and really stretch their creative legs. The album closes with two opposite ends of the spectrum, the terrible ‘Pandemic Persecution’ and then ‘Demonized’, a 7 minute hard rock blast that proves, not only that this kind of music can be done well, but also that Fuelblooded can turn out decent material when they put their mind to it. Yes, it’s still modern melodic thrash, but it has an air of quality and invention that’s just absent from the rest of the album.
Fuelblooded have something; that much is evident from Demonized, so I’m tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that there is more to come from these guys. On the whole this is quite listenable, so far as kiddie thrash goes, but that’s not to say I’d recommend it. If they can go away, man up a bit, give the obviously talented guitarists licence to stretch their fingers, and manage to come up with some better songs, then maybe the next album could be one to look forward to. If they are just going to keep churning out this pedestrian mince however, then they can drop off the face of the earth, and I doubt anyone would notice.
http://www.myspace.com/fuelblooded
