Customer Reviews

Manifesto

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Deadlock is a very unique band within the Melodic Death Metal music scene. With top notch albums such as "Wolves" and "Earth.Revolt" already on their resume, Deadlock needed to come out swinging yet again in order to continue progressing their style they have developed over the years. Well, "Manifesto" may just be good enough to do that.

The album may not be as "heavy" as previous albums, replacing more of the traditional death growls associated with Melodeath, with more contemporary sung lyrics. The vocals are excellent though. Between Johannes' great sounding growls, and Sabine's sometimes angelic sounding voice, the album hits all notes perfectly, leaving the listener stunned and trapped in the non-stop onslaught the album brings to your ears. The mixture of the two vocalists sounds quite excellent, blending heavy elements with more relaxed, and easier to listen to ones.

The band stays true to their typical lyrical content, animal rights. All of the songs feature lyrics about how bad animals are treated, and about how humans need to change their "wicked ways". I, personally, do not like being preached to, but lyrical content aside, Deadlock's style alone makes me continue to come back to them, over and over again. Every song contains a nice melody, great guitar riffs, and excellent drumming rhythms that all fall perfectly into place when mixed with the growls and clean vocals.

Songs such as "Martyr to Science" and "Fire at Will" continue to develop a more unique sound for the band. The songs contain catchy choruses, harsh vocals, and excellent instrument work. "Fire at Will" even contains a unique saxophone solo, yes, a saxophone solo, and it fits beautifully. The closing song of the album, "Temple of Love" is an excellent cover of the original title performed by The Sisters of Mercy, and Sabine's voice sounds perfect for the song. "Dying Breed" is my personal favorite track, and it contains the guest vocalist Christian Alvestam from Scar Symmetry, Miseration, Solution.45, The Few Against Many, and many other Melodic Death Metal bands. Christian Alvestam has always had an amazing range to his voice, especially when it comes to clean vocals, and having him assist Sabine's voice in harmony sounds almost heavenly. The two sound amazing individually, and putting them together on the same track was pure genius, seeing as the resulting sound is astonishing.

The song "Death Race", also strays away from typical stereotypes associated with a Melodic Death Metal band. However, this time it's in a bad way. The song, for reasons unexplained, suddenly breaks down into a random rap track in the midst of a good song. The rap song does not stray away from Deadlock's lyrical content, featuring rappers talking about animal rights. However, the content, the style, and delivery, all seem too out of place for a metal album, especially one of this caliber. I can tolerate a band singing about animal rights, since it sounds more natural and the song is still enjoyable, but a rap song about the same subject matter just feels forced and awkward, resulting in a very unpleasant experience for the listener.

All in all, this album is very good. If you're looking for heavy Melodic Death Metal, you probably won't be happy with this release. The often pop sounding clean vocals may turn you off; I recommend you stick to bands like Dark Tranquillity, Mors Principium Est, Epicurean, Callenish Circle, Detonation, Zonaria, and other bands such as these. However, if you're looking for something with more melody, something that is different, and something catchy on all levels, then perhaps Manifesto will be a good choice for you. If you enjoy Melodic Death Metal bands such as Sonic Syndicate, Scar Symmetry, Miseration, Soilwork, In Flames, or Mercenary, then you will definitely enjoy this album.

THESE GUYS NEVER DISAPPOINT ME!
The new Deadlock album "Manifesto" is a prime example of how Melodic Death Metal should be. This band mixes Brutality and Melody amazingly well. The music will be Brutal and crushing one minute, and the next second you get a melodic beautiful transition. What i love about Deadlock is Their ability to do it so well. The Guitar playing on this album is a treat to any Guitar fan. Many wonderful Melody's, and Harmonies that will be stuck in your head for days, and some of the finest guitar solos you'll find in death metal. This guitarist is a monster! The rest of the band is excellent too. all these guys are top of their game. The Vocals are another huge highlight in this band. you get 2 vocalists. The Deep death metal growls and Screams of Johannes Prem, and the Beautiful angelic female vocals of Sabine Weniger. Bolth Vocalists put on a great performance. The growls, and clean female vocals work strangely amazingly well together. The Catchy Choruses of this album will be burned in your head! my only complaint on this album is on the song "Deathrace" The last 2 mins of this 6 min song is a hip hop freestyle rap part. it comes completely out of left feild, and has no connection to the rest of the song at all. i quess it was a joke or experiment, but not my cup of tea so i always skip it once the part starts. other than that the album is Flawless! The song "Dying Breed" has a quest vocal appearance from "Christian Älvestam" the former vocalist of Scar Symmetry. It is Def a highlight!

This album is amzing don't let it slip by!

for fans of scar symmetry, soilwork, darkane, and in flames

This album contains rap.

Now, for those of you who wish to learn more beyond this point--if you aren't already sick to your stomach--then read on.

I am a huge proponent of album listening. What this means is that I do not listen to playlists, compilations, or single songs unless I'm listening to the radio. When I listen to music, I like to listen to a complete album from a single artist or band. This is how I critique the music I listen to. If I can enjoy a whole album all of the way through, then I can appreciate the artist behind it.

This album is not one of those albums.

The first major interference is the rap portion of the song Deathrace. If the rapping was decent, I may have not been so quick to judge, however, all you must know is that the lyric "Burger King" comes up. Burger King! Alright, that point has been made and needs no further explaining.

The second major interference is the lyric "hunter." I'm not exactly sure how many times the word comes up in the variety of songs, but it comes up too many times to go unnoticeable. Foul play.

The third major interference are these lyrics in the chorus of the song Dying Breed:

Humanity is always innovation
Improvement of a controlled and dominated creation
Our breed has been elected
To become social neglected

I listen to a lot of music that is not always understandable, and most of it I can enjoy without needing to know what is being said. These lyrics, however, stuck out like a piercing weapon with an intent only to murder. Deadlock, you may be from Germany, but if you are going to sing in English, then please check your grammar before finalizing a song! This song should absolutely be re-recorded because of this blunder. Humanity is always innovation? To become social neglected? This is elementary schoolwork here, without being corrected.

This should have gotten two stars, but a lot of the music is still good and still worthy of being listened to. The album, as an entirety, should definitely not be listened to. Bad flavor. And Wolves was so good. Pity.

Deadlock took two steps back with this one. I really like their sound, so I hope they make some wiser choices the next time around.

Sharkchild
Author of The Dark Verse, Volume I: From the Passages of Revenants (Imitation Leather)

Deadlock's previous two albums, "Earth Revolt" and "Wolves", were solid metal albums, with big loud riffs and dark vocals, with a touch of melodic death stylings and symphonic elements. They played fast and loud and over the top, and were consistently fun to listen to, as long as you didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics. They tossed in sweet female vocals as well, making them almost a death metal version of Lacuna Coil at times.

But with their newest album "Manifesto", their sound has gotten depressingly stale and repetitive. The fast riffs and guitar solos on each song begin to sound almost indistinguishable from the last. The album opener "Martyr to Science" sounds very similar to "We Shall All Bleed" from the album "Wolves". I'm okay with songs sounding the same, since all bands are guilty of it at some point, but Deadlock's sound just seems rehashed and boring at this point.

And disappointingly, the new musical elements they have introduced just do not work at all. From the stupid keyboardy intro track to the pop-metal album closer "Temple of Love," whenever Deadlock tries to expand their sound, it sounds pathetic and fake. At least when they are playing fast metal, they sound competent at it. Not original, but at least competent. And let's not even talk about the rapping vocals in the song "Deathrace."

Actually, on second thought, let's talk about that. What in the world were they thinking when they included that on the album? Not only is it pretentious, annoyingly offensive pro-animal nonsense, it sounds totally out of place. It's like some unknown rapper snuck into the recording studio and spliced one of his raps onto their song without their knowledge. It's a horrible idea done horribly. As a metal fan, I can appreciate good rapping, but not crappy amatuer rapping, especially when it completely ruins an otherwise decent song.

And now, the lyrics. If you haven't noticed yet on their previous two albums, the members of Deadlock are vehemently pro-animal, vegan, PETA supporters. As intellectually bankrupt as those beliefs are, the tone of the lyrics rarely strays from offensive accusations about mankind's horrible abuse of the noble animal. "Martyr to Science" is about animals used for medical testing. "The Brave/Agony Applause" is about the sickening abuse animals face ... from the circus. There is a song called "Seal Slayer." The list goes on.

I don't have a problem with bands whose religious/political/ethical beliefs are different from my own. I like System of a Down. I listen to Christian rock bands like Skillet and Project 86. Intelligent lyrics, regardless of the agenda they promote, are interesting to listen to.

It's not what Deadlock says that offends and infuriates me, its how they say it. Each song is loaded with heavy-handed ranting about animal rights. There's no subtlety, no thinly disguised metaphors, no interesting commentary, no new ideas. Just a bunch of hopelessly "better-than-thou" attitude about how precious animals are and how horrible you nasty people are for wanting to eat them. It's pretentious and patently offensive, and trying to even enjoy the music is difficult when the female vocalist is basically calling me a heartless monster for eating a hot dog or going to the circus. The other albums were more tempered with their criticism, but "Manifesto" just drops the facade and tries to lyrically bludgeon me into agreeing with their ridiculous pro-animal politics.

I'll leave "Wolves" and "Earth Revolt" in my CD player, but "Manifesto" just doesn't do it for me. A few good songs cannot redeem stale riffs, awkward musical experimentation, terrible rapping, and simple minded lyrics.

their older stuff is really good, but it seems every new album they put out now gets progressively worse, with this one being the worst so far.
you know they've even had to not play shows cause they couldn't plug in their synthesizers. what kind of metal band is that?

I don't know why, but almost everything on this album sounds like it has been done before, probably too much. They lyrics are nonsense. While true I may not fit in with the political agenda, I find the suggestions overt enough to ruin the music behind it.

Not to totally slam this album, there are some good guitar riffs, and the growling vocals more mostly pleasing to the ear (at least as far as this metalhead puts it). The female clean vocal harmonies are overbearing and seem to thin the music way too much. Her vocals are not astounding, but are not overly annoying either. They fit in, but they do not garner attention, which is exactly what melodic vocals in death metal are SUPPOSED to do.

The rap portion of 'Deathrace' was a complete 'WTF' moment. What were these guys thinking? I usually dislike rap, but this song almost ruined whatever sense of dignity this album had to begin with.

I downloaded this thing off the net and paid money for it, so I guess I'm stuck with it. However, you can bet your bottom dollar I won't be listenign to it all to often. The songs are mostly boring reproductions of someone else's creative genius. There isn't even anything on this album worthy of copying to the ol' iPod.

Deadlock needs to join another 'Deathrace'. I'll pass on any future albums. Manifesto gets an even 2.5/5

This is exactly what is wrong with the music industry. This album is the definition of complete sell out. Not only is this a Scar Symmetry clone, but there's a @%#$ing rap song in the middle of this crapfest. Why would you put a full on rap song in your "extreme metal" album? Slap in the face to all metal fans. If you enjoy this, you are obviously missing out on numerous other amazing bands. Please, go find them.