Band:
JM (Lead vocals and guitar)
Joey (Lead guitar and Backing vocals)
Jocke (Drums)
Lindell (Bass and backing vocals)
Discography:
Smashed On Arrival
Kamikaze Love Reducer
We Are Just As Welcome As Holy Water
Moonlight City
Bursting Out Of Chuckys Town
The Pleasure Kill
Original Scandinavian Superdudes
Death By Misadventure
Guests:
Info
Released 28/8-2010
Reviewed 31/8-2010
Links:
psychopunch.com
myspace
silverdust
Psychopunch punch us badly here in the last breath of the summer and thunder out a dirty, punk-rocky heavy metal album (or pherhaps rock ´n roll-album with heavy metal elements). They build up the songs in their own little way with refrains that just goes on and on and also gets better and better by the second. Because a chorus from Psychopunch is actually much longer than you would think at first. They build on to the climax untill it explode into some sort of super chorus. This gives the songs a unique character. In the foundation it's rock ´n roll, but the construction of the songs is more advanced which gives Psychopunch more dept than most albums in this genre.
Unfortunately I find the vocalist quite annoying, it's a sort of Gotthard/Monster Magnet/Hardcore Superstar/Backyard Babies or pherhas some Lemmy (?) feeling hanging over the vocalist. But except the voice, the so called JM have good timing and feeling in the singing. But does it fit with the music? Well, quite... kind of like a bunny fit in long ears. It would be interesting to see if it wouldn't be even better with less of it, but it's pretty okay as it is.
The best in this is the rhytm and the nice groove they have - especially in the faster songs. It feels really heavy and rolling, though not hard. It's kind of like a super car, if they want to press the pedal to metal they can make whatever noise they want, but this is more like cruising - it gos slow but you hear them from afar anyway.
The golden tracks can be found all over the place, because they've spread them all over the album. This is something I find very positive, all too often bands put all their great tracks first - or last - and when this happens it's quite annoying to play the entire album. On 'The Last Goodbye' there is a good first song, followed by good second one. Afer that the album is built up by one or two good songs followed by one or two bad songs, or vice versa. I have quite difficult to pick a favorite sticking out from the rest, but I think that the titeltrack, She Don't Really Mind and Another Sunday Morning are my foremost favourites. Also I think it's a good thing that the album never reach the 40 minute limit, which feels as an upper line of how long an album can keep interesting. 'The Last Goodbye' stops at an high 37 minutes.
On the negative there is th thing with Psychopunchs mid-tempo songs. When it's fast it's good. When it's slow it's also good. But when they get stuck in between it isn't. Kind of a big yawn takes over your mouth and the reason to this may either be the sound or someting else (no way!?). This party-ish music just goes best as long as it's played fast or slow. When Psychopunch play like most other bands, in mid tempo, they sound boring. Like the third song, called Never let me go. It's one of the albums most mid-tempoish songs with quite a normal chorus and it is repeated just as much as the refrains in which ever Eurovision Song Contest contribution you hear. It also is one of this album's crappiest parts.
Overall, I think 'The Last Goodbye' have more that's good than bad. It shines the most when the band take their own roads to the point. I think it's a good album, on the limit to really good actually. But I think the ones who will like this the most is the rock ´n roll fans. Me, I think it's a diamond in an field of crap.I hope this isn't the bands last goodbye but that they will return and say farewell one more time.
HHHHHHH
