Grudge Against Personality - The Monster (Review)

What happens when Japanese try to be Americans or Europeans? Usually nothing good. Take for example any band: famous Lovebites or little-known Absolute. Everywhere there will be one and the same thing: the same patterns, pathos narrative, high emphasis on strong emotions, ect.

My Rating: 70/100 Best song: The Monster

If you just thought that I was very biased about this, then I dare to assure you that this is not so. I just report what I hear. And also I read what is called “between the lines”. More precisely, between notes, but this is not the point. Fortunately, here it's not taken to such an extreme - still a decent professional level is felt. There are only two tracks, so you can write about them relatively much. Strong statement. Of course, I will not check it.

And I’ll very much notice the “western” sound. But what is the sound there, even band name is a colloquial expression that means “take offense at the personality”. Yeah, it's rather difficult not to notice such a number of Western ideas. Yes, I don't hide the fact that I have prejudices about copying. But let's continue about the sound. Here you can hear something like nu-metal in the spirit of Disturbed. It's good when some projects influence others projects. It's bad when there is small amount of originality.

About a small amount of originality, I started for a reason. It's noticeable that the composer made a very big bet on emotions. His work as a whole looks cool - there is no arguing here. But when you look, due to what, the charm is somewhat dissipated.

The vocalist is good. More precisely, vocalists - two voices are noticeable here. It's also noticeable that composer's main goal is to convey emotions, not a skill demonstration. Actually, this affects the vocalists work - there are exactly as many as needed. However, something interesting can be noticed. For example, vocal parts structure also looks interesting.

Instrumental parts - everything is quite simple here. As I noted earlier, the composer makes a big bet on emotions. And this is reflected in every element of the compositions. Guitar parts are simple. In the first track, a two riffs. In second - predominantly, one groove riff that stretches throughout the composition. And, as usual, I note that I understood how this is played during listening - I tend to see a negative point in this. Bassist is hard to hear in the mix - very low tuning of the instrument affects it. However, in second track you can clearly hear the upper tone part - this indicates a brightly pronounced attack. Although, if you did not hear the bassist, then you lost a little - nothing complicated was noticed here either. However, the other rhythm section part - drummer - looks great. He is trying to somehow portray diversity, but from a technical point of view it comes out weakly. But the drum patterns sound cool - the composer's high bet on emotions affects it. Additional instruments are also worth paying attention to. At the beginning of the first track, the synthesizer creates an intriguing beginning - this is a good sign. And then, over the course of both compositions, it creates an atmosphere. Well, this is a relatively good way to diversify the composition.

Such a great talent, but in the end we see only a copy of modern Western bands, even a quite high-quality. It bothers me a bit: these guys have a decent level, but their own (original) ideas are poorly traced. It reminds me of a typical rock band from Russia - a great talent, but ideas, for the most part, are borrowed. Well, I like that they do their job efficiently - this can be seen extremely rarely. But still, it's worth remembering that no matter how you try to repeat someone, there is still someone who will do it better.