Customer Reviews

Intelligent Design

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This was my first introduction into the very talented group Shaolin Death Squad and overall I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of Faith no More circa "Angel Dust"/"King for a Day" meets Mr. Bungle circa "California" with a bit of Fair to Midland, Danny Elfman and a few other influences thrown in for good measure. I'd call them Avante-Garde Experimental Prog-ish metal with just a very small hint of death metal (occasional vocals) here and there. Lots of interesting time signature changes and many songs are constructed differently enough from the other songs on the album that you get a very nice diversity of music to listen to all in the same album. Still, despite the eclectic/experimental nature of the album, most of the songs have pretty strong melodies so it's not just a bunch of randomness for the sake of being random.

The Songs:
A Terrible Way to Use a Sword - 8/10 - strong opening with a nice blend of musical styles
Catastrophic Obedience - 7/10 - enjoyable song, but never seems to get where it wants to go.
Choreographer of Fate - 10/10 - beautiful, very strong effort with lots of great movements.
Radio Feeler - 7/10 - pretty straight forward, but well constructed progish sounding rock song,
Face Insecurity Killed - 8/10 - another good song that has lots of interesting sounds but never quite reaches it's potential, IMO.
Escaping Absynthe - 9/10 - one of the better songs on the album, strong melody, vocals.....well put together song
Fall, Rise, Laugh...Fall - 8/10 - this Faith-No-More-esque song is pretty enjoyable, but is lacking that special something to take it to the next level
A Story Lives Forever - 10/10 - the best song of the album, IMO. Lots of greatness to enjoy here........
First Half of Yesterday - 7.5/10 - despite a couple of awkward/muddy passages in the song, there's a fair amount to enjoy

So, bottom line; these guys are are obviously very talented and are pushing the boundaries of music which I have a lot of respect for, and there are no duds on this album so in that regard, it's a great album and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys experimental proggish metal. However, having listened to this for a week or so now, I feel like other than a couple of the best songs on the album, there's just something keeping it from ascending to being a true classic.