Mendeed

Positive Metal Attitude

Written by: CR on 18/12/2008 15:18:58

It's time to open the second chapter in the Mendeed re-issue trilogy. With the slight disappointment from last time still fresh in my memory (first review can be found here), I didn't have any expectations for "Positive Metal Attitude". For those who can be bothered to read the first review, I mainly criticized the production of the album as it sounded like it was recorded in the basement of a concrete factory. The band did however show some promise and left me with some hope that they had the potential to deliver more than just generic metalcore. So to see if they actually did fulfill their potential on their final release all you have to do is read on.

First off, the production hasn't improved much. A lot of the songs still suffer from sub par performance in all areas of the production. The drums are once again especially bad and the cardboard bass drum is still very apparent. Worse than that, the guitar players have gone along on the cardboard wave and have apparently got their hands on cabinets in that material. I have no idea why but it seems like they really dig the hollow blur your riffs turns into with these. Fortunately they have the common sense to shift between these and actual amps so it's only a problem on 40% of the songs and all of the solos are really well recorded and mixed.

Mixed is the word I would also use about the quality of the music. Mendeed manages to squash my hopes with the first two songs by stubbornly refusing to play anything else than generic metalcore. The third song, "Stand As One And Fight For Glory", doesn't begin too well either with a drum intro that'd make Lars Ulrich proud (no, that's not a good thing). But the song comes back strong and makes you realize that Mendeed actually have taken a step forward, choosing the same path as Trivium did from "Ascendancy" to "The Crusade", as they opt for a slower pace with a much more refined balance between vocal driven pieces and faster harmonic pieces.

From there on, the album evolves slightly after each song as it seems the band become more confident in their ability to think outside the box and take chances. Solos slowly turn from average to quite good, vocals start to compliment the dynamics better with nice transitions from screaming to clean singing and back again. Though I have no idea why Mendeed still chooses to continuously regress back to metalcore in every second song, there's no doubt in my mind that if you took all the good pieces from each of the songs and turned them into a Frankenstein of a song it would easily be an 8 or maybe even a 9 on my scale. It makes me sad that Mendeed didn't have the balls to just jump into it from the beginning as with these ideas - some quality recording easily could have made an album on par with Trivium's "The Crusade".

Download: Messiah, The End Of Man
For The Fans Of: Trivium, Killswitch Engage
Listen: Myspace
Buy: iTunes

Release date 24.10.2008
Rising Records

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