Kylesa: 'To Walk a Middle Course'
a radio bobo-k music review

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Norma Jean: 'O God The Aftermath'
a radio bobo-k mucic review

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The Bad and the Better of "new" metal...

For those Blunterettes who have read the Radio Bobo-K bio, you know that many moons ago I was a rock promoter. Back in the day (<- aaarrrr, I thought I'd shoot myself if I ever used that phrase) I promoted a number of death metal artists and albums. What constituted death metal back then was sludgey chords, thrashy guitars, and guttural hard-to-understand scratchy vocals shouted at the top of your lungs, usually singing about death and dismemberment if you could understand what the heck they were saying.

Somewhere along the way a new genre of music came about, I've seen tagged as "alt-metal", which is really death metal without all of the lyrics about death and dismemberment.

What has not really changed much is the tonal quality and sound of the groups. So we come to the good and the bad of this new "alt-metal", strangely enough both CD were sent to me from the same publicist, a buddy from back in the day.

The bad:
Norma Jean's second full-length almost made me run screaming for the door (and not in a good way). It sounds like every other bad death metal act that I promoted ten years ago. Sure there's an audience for the genre, but I'm not it.

O God the Aftermath is the follow-up to 2002's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child. The band has undergone a line-up change since then, and for those that keep track, the group was previously a Christian rap-metal hybrid known as Luti-Kriss. So I guess one would call this Christian death metal (death and resurrection metal?). Listening to it hurts my head, and very few band do that, (other than more bad death metal and American Idol's Diana DeGarmo, but I digress).

The better:
Kylesa's third album To Walk a Middle Course has a much fresher take on the old death metal sound. I definitely detect hardcore and punk influences - not just because the bio told me so, but there really is a resemblance to the L.A. stalwarts X with their interplay between John Doe and Excene Cervenka. Obviously both groups feature male and female vocalists, but it's more than that-it's not just the tonal quality but the use of the two voices.

In addition, musically the influence of X is very present, and also some of the bass and drum lines seem right out of the book of another two-vocalist fronted band (though both vocalists are male) personal favorites of mine Biohazard. The group must equally give a nod to Crisis, with female lead vocalist Karyn Crisis, who was the first woman in my recollection to breakout big in the death/black metal genre. However, the use of vocal interplay between Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants, plus the incorporation of other styles, revitalizes the familiar sounds of the genre.

But it's more than just the female voice that makes Kylesa stand out - it's the music. A song like "Train of Thought" really has that hardcore guitar vibe, with a seamless transition to the, dare I say, melodic guitar in "Motion and Presence". Sure I still don't know what the heck they are saying without reading the lyrics (which are thankfully included in the packaging) but Kylesa offers growth to a genre that I had long since considered, no pun intended, dead.

Norma Jean
O God the Aftermath:

1. Murderotica
2. Vertebraille
3. Bayonetwork
4. Dilemmachine
5. Coffinspire
6. Liarsenic
7. Disconnecktie
8. Absentimental
9. Charactarantula
10. Pretendeavor
11. Scientification

Kylesa
To Walk A Middle Course

1. In Memory
2. Fractured
3. Train of Thought
4. Motion and Presence
5. Welcome Mat to an Abandoned Life
6. Bottom Line
7. Eyes Closed from Birth
8. Shatter the Clock
9. Phantoms
10. Crashing Slow