On the Loose
s/t

The cover of the self-titled album by On the Loose is pretty interesting and pretty in its minimalistic approach, a tempting cover that promises great things. The style of the band is described as a mixture of Candlemass and Iron Maiden, two prominent bands in different areas of the metal world, doom and classic heavy metal. Epic Doom Metal is what I read in the music player, doom metal that is generally a genre that is very much hit or miss, where the hits are strong of course, and the misses tend to be extremely dull.

Using the Maiden and Candlemass mixture idea I think that this album can fit that description with its doom metal that features a singer who sounds like a Bruce Dickinson in despair because he is ailed with Covid19. The sound is quite generic for the doom metal style, and it feels nothing like the cover – it is much plainer and greyer. The lack of variation makes the 47 minutes seem like 470, and then some. It is so long that I expect to be retired from working life when it ends, fortunately time is relative, so I don’t waste all my life on crap.

Bringing together the worst of Candlemass and Iron Maiden gives you On the Loose, this self-titled tormentor makes you re-evaluate being alive. It is not really a terrible album, it is just boring, there are no particularly good songs, and the terrible vocals are making it a bit arduous to play through it. So, even though I am tempted to go even lower, I am not sure that it would be fair as On the Loose don’t really fail, and all they do is make generic doom metal with a singer who would like to be Bruce Dickinson but isn’t quite up to the task.

I am not sure who would like this album, perhaps the ones who likes to torment him- or herself, or the ones who always wanted Bruce Dickinson to sound more despaired? What I do know is that the audience for this album will be extremely small and it is difficult to see that anyone would find it good enough to give it another spin after hearing it once.

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