MUTOID MAN - War Moans

Born from the partnership between Stephen Brodsky, guitarist and vocalist of Cave In, and Ben Koller, drummer of Converge, plus Nick Cageao on bass, Mutoid Man present themselves, right from their name and their first Ep "Helium Head" in 2013, as a bizarre deformation of their original projects. Having helped define metalcore as one of the most serious — indeed self-serious — subgenres of the extreme rock landscape, these "mutants" sound exactly as if they'd taken a break from the extremism they grew up with. Truth be told, Cave In always found the metalcore straitjacket too tight, balancing it in their best albums with psychedelia, indie and space-rock. Converge, on the other hand, have made and continue to make fidelity to the genre (an irritating intransigence) their whole reason for being.

So Mutoid Man become a kind of release valve, playing music that's not so much less heavy as it is clearly more fun. The debut Ep and the first album, "Bleeder", from 2015, hit the mark, with their blend of speed metal, hardcore fury and, above all, a freak attitude reflected in sprawling, cerebral compositions that are nonetheless always impactful and never alienating. One track above all: the ultra-stoner cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (retitled "The Manimals") by Animals. This follow-up, "War Moans", confirms the formula, leaning harder into metal heaviness and speed, but also into tighter, cleaner production. In practice, this ends up hitting the band's weird, garage-rock soul, which, in this writer's opinion, was precisely its strong point.

The first part of the tracklist suffers the most from this shift, with the more punk, direct tracks, while from "Date With The Devil" onward the approach grows more idiosyncratic, with sludge influences ("Headrush"), epic touches ("Irons In The Fire", the title track) and assorted dissonances (the excellent "Wreck And Survive", "Afterlife"). There's also room for a ballad, the closing "Bandages", which incredibly turns out to be a great track, among the best on the record.

Needless to say, "War Moans" is not a bad record, but it's a shame to see the band develop the most negligible element of their early work — the one tied to the metal universe — rather than what truly justifies Mutoid Man's existence: a fun, fun-loving band, in which musicians usually known for being serious and committed let loose with rock'n'roll in their own way.

Produced by Kurt Ballou of Converge, with guitar contributions from Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth) and vocals from Chelsea Wolfe.

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27/07/2017