Auditory Abominations: "Hero" - Skillet

And now, back to the foray of bad heavy metal, last time I looked at bad heavy metal tracks I looked at two songs by big named bands, and one song by a band I did not like. I don't think that it's any coincidence that both Skillet and P.O.D. are Christian Metal bands. Honestly, Christian music should not be so bad, I mean the messages are usually fine, but the performances are usually so tasteless, it's like watching Kevin Costner in Waterworld, not a whole lot of anything really.

Actually, that may also be my biggest problem with Skillet, that there is really just no flavour to them, I mean when you think about heavy metal bands, there is always something that makes them stand out, System of a Down has Serj Tankian, GWAR has their personas, Alice Cooper has his stage act, Metallica has their songs, and Rammstein is Rammstein. Skillet has none of that, no incredible frontman, no enjoyable personas, no on-stage antics, no really amazing songs, nothing, but hey, I picked this song at random, maybe this one is okay.

The song opens with one of the weakest riffs I have ever heard. Compare this opening riff to something like "Du Hast", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Ace of Spades" or "Back in Black", you know how all those riffs just get you immediately hooked? This one doesn't, and even has some weird stopping effect to it, kind of like Metalstep, the fusion genre of Heavy Metal and Dubstep. The riff also reminds me of a weaker version of "The Diary of Jane", which sounded like a slower and sludgier version of the opening riff to "Sweet Child O' Mine", jeez do we have enough of the ripping-off here?

Out of nowhere, the instrumentals just kind of die and shift into the rest of the song, where I really have no comment to make on the instrumentals, they just sound, meh. The big problem with this song is the vocalist, if you took Chester Bennington, David Draimen, and Ian Gillan, threw them all into a blender and sifted out any vocal power, than you'd get something like John L. Cooper. The track also has backing vocals by his wife Korey, and she sounds like Ke$ha, I have no other thing to compare her to, she sounds like Ke$ha, that's it.

Like I said, a lot of messages in these kinds of songs are not terrible, although this one is kind of obvious, talking about how mankind needs a hero. Insert Castlevania: Symphony of the Night reference here. The message is not terrible, although since this is Christian metal you can assume whom the hero they are reffering to is.

Thankfully, the lyrics aren't total trash, I mean they are quite preachy, and I think they aren't using some metaphors properly, I mean in this context what does "Just another war" mean? Like, another war on religion? A war on Christians? Another war in general? And then it ends with the usual "I'll stand up and fight" lyrics that were so much better in a song like "Stand Up and Shout" because that song actually makes me want to stand up and shout, where tis makes me want to shut it off. But the lyrics are about average, I'm not expecting Freddie Mercury levels of writing here anyway.

Really, the song itself is bland, but the song also has uninspired instrumentals, rather blah vocalists, and meh lyrics. I wonder if this truly is the best we can get from Christian Music, even if not, this genre may be a recurring one on this blog.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and believe what you want to believe in, that's what I say.

Auditory Abominations: "Satellite" - P.O.D.

Let's talk about mixing genres, such as rap and metal. This is not a new concept, in fact if you consider the old school 70s hard rock bands as heavy metal, than Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" is kind of the frontrunner to it all, and than we also had Anthrax doing their crossover with Public Enemy and other bands like Rage Against the Machine and Old school Linkin Park. The idea of mixing genres has always been around and it often creates some odd combinations, such as P.O.D.

P.O.D. is a Christian Rap Metal band with a touch of reggae. So this is technically the first religious abomination, but as I said when I reviewed the album, nothing is bad on it's own because of the fact that it is religious, there are some songs by religious groups that I actually like. I say this now as a statement to save my own behind because, I think P.O.D. is one of my least favourite metal bands, alongside groups like Skillet and a few Grindcore bands.

The song I chose is Satellite, which I don't think is their worst song, but was the only song I thought was worth remembering off of the album.

Immediately we are hit with drums and guitars and they don't sound bad, a little generic but not terrible, unfortunately the same cannot be said about the rapping, as it sounds ubber generic. In fact that is the problem with the song on it's own.

The whole song feels like one of those songs you'd have in a video game soundtrack that just kind of blends in with what's happening, but unlike something like "Pedal to the Metal", it wouldn't stick out and just be over when it stops, you know the ones that I'm talking about they plague a lot of racing games.

Really I think the biggest problem with the song isn't even the song itself. This was the sixth track on the album and it was the point where a lot of the songs and instrumentals especially, started to sound very similar and generic.

Really this song is just dull and boring. It offers nothing and the chorus is just repeating the song title, Because That Worked Out Well Before*

I think maybe I'll take another crack at this group at a later time, but right now I'm finished with Metal Abominations. What's Next?

God, Damn it all.

I'm the Entity of Darkness and I really hate the upcoming song.

*Each word is a separate link to click on!