PANDEMMY - SUBVERSIVE NEED
I got a message from the great label BigBadWolf Records from The Netherlands if I was interested in doing a death metal review. As always, I say yes to anything that comes from BigBadWolf Records. They always release quality metal and they have been around for ages and ages. Pandemmy is a band that has been around since 2010 and they've released two EP's, 1 split and 3 full lengths including 'Subversive Need'. The Brazilian 4-piece death/thrash band has won the 2011 Wacken Open Air Local Battle which is really impressive. So with that in the back of my head, I started to listen to 'Subversive Need'.
I guess it is still a thing that bands are trying to be the thrashy version of Lamb Of God because this (I think) is exactly what Pandemmy is trying to do with 'Subversive Need'. There are a lot of moments where this indication is inevitable. The pull offs and hammer ons are just an overkill during 'Subversive Need'. There are moments that feel like the black swan in the song like the weird flanger-like gang vocals on 'Neohate' are done so weird that they don't fit in the mix at all. 'Neohate' also has like a weird hardcore build up pre-breakdown bit that just randomly fades out that could've made the song a bit more interesting because I do hear potential in especially the solo's, those are done very good. They (the solo's) just need to be placed in the right moments during the songs. They really feel out of place sometimes.
'I Choose Your Blood' is by far the weirdest song on 'Subversive Need'. The bass intro is really cool. The effects are done correctly and the build-up towards the main riff are good. However when we arrive at the main riff, the whole song takes a hard rock twist which I don't expect on a death/thrash album to be honest. But halfway during that song it does have a medium paced thrash tremolo picking riff that goes back into the weird hard rock main riff. It absolutely doesn't make any sense. So that is something Pandemmy should be working on, song structures.
At this point during 'Subversive Need', I need to say that there is just absolutely no change in the vocal style. It is all exactly the same growl which gets really boring. If he could do something else during the album, that would be great otherwise you will lose a lot of listeners after a song or 3. But then we get to the absolute weirdest moment aka 'The Illusion Of Suffering'. This is so weirdly placed in the album. Acoustic guitar, ambient soundscapes, 'clean' vocals. This doesn't belong on this album.
Over all, 'Subversive Need' is a mix of everything, you have hard rock, thrash metal, metalcore, ambient, 'clean vocals' and so many out of place elements that make this album really hard to listen to. The song structures are weird and the good bits are almost always at the end of the songs. I couldn't enjoy this album as much as I wanted to do so but I just couldn't do it. The tips I can give to Pandemmy are, listen and study song structures. That is the main issue I found while listening to 'Subversive Need'.
