Throwdown

Deathless

Written by: PP on 08/01/2010 11:56:30

I fucking hate Throwdown. You know those idiotic windmill karate moshers you tend to see at hardcore / metalcore shows ruining the fun for everyone else? Throwdown is probably their favorite band of all time, they are the main offender together with Bury Your Dead, and therefore all your hate should be directed towards them. You can take any Throwdown song - even from their sixth album "Deathless" - and deduct the following elements out of it: a verse 'riff', which is basically a massive breakdown featuring one chord only for the entire song with some hardcore screaming/growling in the vein of Lamb Of God on top, and a semi-clean chorus borrowing more than should be allowed from Killswitch Engage, and to an extent, Phil Anselmo.

The band used to be a run-of-the-mill metalcore band back in the day, but these days they're leaning more towards Pantera's groove metal style. In fact, "Deathless" sees Throwdown play precisely the sort of contemporary metal built on hardcore and groove/southern metal as Lamb Of God, et al, except they are about as original and inspiring as a white sheet of paper. Basically, Orange County metalcore at its worst, the haters could and will say. Now to their credit, some of the choruses can be reasonably catchy, "This Continuum" and "The Blinding Light" being the ones first to pop up when discussing this album. But the problem isn't so much the band's ability to write good choruses, but their ability, or lack thereof, of writing memorable songs. When each of the 12 tracks on offer sounds almost identical, following the same formula throughout with one exception or two (like the balladic "Widowed", which sounds strangely similar to Drowning Pool and Disturbed?), the entire album blends together like a lone tree in a Finnish forest. Simply put, the album is too safe. The band doesn't dare to push the envelope in the way that Lamb Of God, DevilDriver, Chimaira and Machine Head do, which is the reason they are critically acclaimed and Throwdown are not. In a way, they share this problem with a band like Killswitch Engage: if you've heard one song, you've heard them all. Average rating for the reasonable choruses, but heavily punishable for the unoriginality and the chug-chug verses.

5

Download: The Blinding Light, This Continuum
For the fans of: Pantera, Lamb Of God, Bury Your Dead, Killswitch Engage, First Blood
Listen: Myspace

Release date 10.11.2009
E1 Music / Nuclear Blast

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.