Numbnuts

Smokey The Salmon And The Horny Mermaids

Written by: PP on 24/08/2011 19:38:39

Numbnuts is a Danish collective that has existed in more than ten years, yet they haven't mustered together anything else than a single EP six years ago. That's about to change now, as the group, which features Esse from Hatesphere/As We Fight on the vocals, just released their nine track debut album "Smokey The Salmon And The Horny Mermaids Of Detention". As you might imagine from the ridiculous (and pretty lame) title, they inject a great deal of humour into their songwriting, which will appeal to some and to others it'll just sound extremely stupid. Like the undersigned, for example. Anyway, their debut album is pushed as a hardcore oriented rock'n'roll record, which is partly true, but you can't get around how their guitars sound like straight-forward metalcore for the majority of the album.

But that's okay, I'm not a metalcore hater, and the band does also include elements from thrash metal occasionally as well, and a hell of a lot of groove. In fact, the entire album sounds like one looooooong grooooove because from start to finish, every riff, every chord, every bridge is designed to bring out the best in groove metal whilst not abandoning the melodies found in the metalcore roots. Sure, some songs have solos that reach into classic rock, and Esse's vocal delivery definitely feels more at home at the hardcore scene than it does in the metal scene, but for all intents and purposes, we can treat "Smokey..." as a metalcore record. A rather uninspired and unoriginal one, I might add. I mean it says a lot when your Dire Straits cover "Satans Of Swing" (with a 'clever' word exchange in the title) is by-and-large the best song on the album, without question. The funny thing is that the band even have a song called "Modern Metal Cliché", where they intentionally try to write as generic and unoriginal metal as possible, and it doesn't sound too different from the rest of the album. Oops.

The album also contains a few decent guest performances from Henrik Heinz Jacobsen (ex Hatesphere) and Martin Olsen from As We Fight, but not anything you'd want to write home about. In general, the music owes a lot to As We Fight and Hatesphere, without really sounding identical to either of the two fellow Danish units, and does a decent job at being groovy and melodic in places, but distinctly lacks in songwriting and interesting compositions that'd make it anything more than just 'okay'.

6

Download: Satans Of Swing (Dire Straits cover), Endless Guilt Trip, Modern Metal Cliché
For the fans of: As We Fight, Hatesphere,
Listen: Myspace

Release date 01.08.2011
Mighty Music

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