Customer Reviews

Soulcrusher

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I didn't know what to think of Operator after I saw the video for "Soulcrusher". I thought that maybe they were a bastard child of Chris Cornell and Disturbed. However, after listening to this CD nonstop for a week, I can honestly say, they have come up with a style all their own.
If you could even describe their music, I would have to say they sound like a harder version of Audioslave, but even that is not accurate. All I can say is these guys know how to rock! Even better, unlike most bands, not all the songs on the album sound the same. The single, "Soulcrusher" will have you wanting to jump into a mosh pit and drop kick someone. However, the bluesy "Delicate", argueably the best song on the album, will have you thinking about friends that you've lost touch with.
I won't give away too much, but this album offers a little bit of everything from Hard Rock, to Alternative, to Grunge, to metal. If you like your rock music with a little teeth, but also enjoy a good listen, pic up this album. Years from now this album will be talked about as a classic.

Ok, I've read all these reviews saying "the first track was great, but after that I didn't like the rest".
I tell you what, if you really want an album where all the tracks are the same just stick the first damn track on repeat..

This is a pretty good album, with a good mix of songs that wont leave you thinking that they all just sound too similar.

As for the lead singer trying to sound like Cornell, yeah, he sounds a little like him....a LITTLE. His style reminded more of Axel Rose than cornell sometimes, in fact the whole band and style reminded me of G'N'R (listen to the chorus of 'Nothing at all' and tell me it's not Roses'esque), but I liked it, I liked it a lot.

If you want a good rock album that isn't too 'pop' or too heavy, or doesn't have 12 songs of some guy simply screaming his head off, then buy this album.

If I had to use two words to descibe this album, they would have to be 'pleasantly good'.

I purchased this album having heard Soulcrusher countless times on the radio and Madden 2008 and figured that at worst, there'd be at least one good song on the album. As it turned out, Soulcrusher turned out to be on the lower end of the spectrum. Certainly, Strong's voice can easily be confused with Chris Cornell's, but it's a somewhat unfair label. This album accomplished something that no Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog/Audioslave/Cornell album ever was able to do - at no point did I ever feel like skipping to the next song. That being said, I'll make an unfair Cornell comparison! Of all of his various works, about half of the album is very reminiscent of Badmotorfinger and the other half, Down on the Upside. Overall, if you like SG, you'll probably like this. As for recent works that are comparable, they share a lot in common with the likes of Seether and Shinedown.

The hard rock scene is just as difficult to enter as perhaps any other music market. Thanks to the advent of the Internet and more and more bands saturating the music markets, coming out with a debut album is no small fete. The band Operator released their debut album Soulcrusher in August of 2007, however, the debut album has fallen short in terms of sales and the fan base that might have been hoped for simply does not seem to be there.

Though the album maintains a decent hit song in the title track Soulcrusher , the rest of the album seems uninspired and quite simply put is a poor debut album for a band hoping to make it big. The music of Operator simply does not stick out enough to make it original enough to make it more memorable than any other halfway decent hard rock band you might have heard at the local dive bar. With a sound that is so remarkably close to everything that has already been done, Operator seems destined to be known as being a band that "could have been" largely in part to their fair performance on this album.

Operator is comprised of Johnny Strong (vocals), Wade Carpenter (bass), Paul Phillips (guitar), Rikki Lixx (Guitar) and Dorman Pantfoeder (drums).

The title track of the album, Soulcrusher , is the only true glimmer of hope on the album. With radio stations taking a liking to this song, Operator should go back to the recording studios and figure out what worked on this track and hopefully will infuse a similar musical methodology into upcoming works. The track starts out with a very well crafted guitar and drum sound that holds together the song and the vocals on the track tie in nicely to the rest of the music in terms of structure. Though the vocals are a bit too raspy and emphasize screaming more than talent, when the pace of the track slows down from time to time the true potential of the vocals of Strong can aptly be heard. The variation on this track from fast and heavy rock sounds to a much slower and more methodical pace shows that musically the band is willing to mix up sounds to create a more well rounded track. It is a shame that this philosophy doesn't hold true for the rest of the album.

What You Get has an almost out of place industrialized studio sound that highlights the entry into the track. Rather than focus on the music from the get go this sort of garage band walking into the track lacks in musical professionalism. From time to time it can be heard that Operator surely has a decent instrumental sound so perhaps the best recommendation would be to focus more on perfecting the instrumental sound before toying with cutesy little studio tricks.

Perhaps another example of Operator simply being a few steps away from creating an album worthy of being listened to is on the track Black Cloud . The first minute to two minutes of the track focuses on a much different vocal sound that emphasizes a pure vocal sound that matches the lyrics and music nicely. Rather than rely on that vocal capability, randomly toward the end of the track the music picks up in intensity and we are now back to the random screaming vocals. Perhaps what Operator is missing is that in order to qualify as being hard rock a band need not rely solely on some perturbed looking white man shrilling at the top of his lungs. Had the band instead chosen to focus the entire track as the first two minutes were the outcome of this track would have been far different.

A bizarre final track Live Your Way leaves the listener scratching their head asking what just happened. After listening to an entire album that hammers you over the head with an intense hard rock sound, Operator brings that same hard rock feel into the beginning of the track that quickly gives way to a piano solo with soft and deep vocals for the last two minutes of the track. With an almost funeral-esque sound to the very tail end of the album, the listener can only wonder where the hard rock sound went and why Operator would have chosen to end the album in this way.

Track listing:

1. Soulcrusher
2. Nothing to Lose
3. Make 'Em Pay
4. So Little Time
5. Delicate
6. What You Get
7. The Only One
8. Burn Up The Road
9. Black Cloud
10. Good Enough
11. Live Your Way

It seems as though perhaps Operator might have fallen victim to the debut album disaster syndrome. Soulcrusher really has now cohesiveness to it and therefore the band's debut album sounds like a pot-luck supper of what has already been done. After listening to the entire album the listener is simply left to wonder what the music of Operator is all about and what sound they are hoping to call their own. The album from start to finish at times shows glimmers of hope but like any rock hoping to be made more appealing for sale as a gem, Soulcrusher certainly needs a great deal of polishing.

Soulcrusher is on the Atlantic Records label and was produced by Craig Kallman, Danny Wimmer and Bill Applesberry.

For more information about Operator, check out their website at [...]

Recommended:
No

This album is one of the best rock records of the last decade. Sonically it's fantastic. The songs are hard and inspired and the moods change throughout the record from moody brooding ballads to hard and intense with excellent vocals on every song. It sounds like Guns and Roses had a bastard son with Soundgarden in Pink Floyd's bed. Best $15 you'll ever spend.

I wanted to like this album. I really did. I've been absolutely loving the revival of real rock & roll bands that's been taking place in recent years, and had hopes that Operator would be a band on par with Stone Rider, Black Stone Cherry or Endeverafter. Instead, all I'm hearing on Soulcrusher is a Soundgarden wannabe. Actually, the band seems to waffle between Soundgarden worship and what Motley Crue would sound like with Chris Cornell on vocals. I suppose vocalist Johnny Strong could have picked a worse role model than Cornell, but his imitation is so close that it takes away from what might otherwise have been a solid hard rock album.

Soulcrusher is a decent enough album I suppose, and it does rock (especially the monster title track), which counts for a lot these days. It's just not anything you haven't heard before if you already own at least one Soundgarden album. To be fair though, I'd rather listen to this than Audioslave.

I love this record. Sure there some similarities to other artists, but that's what happens when you have artists that inspire you. Opinions are your own, and mine of this record is a whole hearted 5 start. I absolutely love it.

With so much rock these days sounding emasculated, Operator
stand out as a throwback to the 90's. Soulcrusher was an instant
favorite and I recommend anyone who is turned off by what is getting
the most play these days to check it out

This a great first effort by Operator. The lead singer and band sound extremely similar to Audioslave and in some instances sound significantly better. Definitely worth a listen. Best song is So Little Time but there are at least 5 tracks that 9 out of 10.

Takented singer and musicians. Yeah, the singer sounds a lot like Chris Cornell but he hasn't done amything this good in a while. Some really good tunes on this one.