Album Review - ClusterheaD - Times of No Trust

Clusterhead is a four piece outfit that has been around since 2005, formed in Germany and boasts rather loudly about sounding something like Accept and Cage with a melodic vocalist. Only "Times of No Trust" doesn't particularly sound anything like those bands, and their vocalist is worlds away from being anything close to melodic.

However, the music here is rather passable, mid tempo modern rock that struts forward with power (often times to the exclusion of what the song may actually need besides skull grinding instrumentation) and gritty, growling guitar riffs. Some of these are quite tasty and well done, only sullied by the singer who screeches, roars and fairly smears the music in his - sometimes - nasty vocal tones. He's capable of better, but it seems that on "No Trust" he is either trying too hard, or not trying at all.
"Made of Stone" is one of these songs. It has this thick, crushing rock tempo that strikes a neat groove but the vocals just do not keep flow with the song itself. They seem to be at odds with one another, and that creates an overall amateur feel.

"Tears I've Cried" sees the vocalist hitting some unusual notes, fairly straightforward and then reaching for those shrieky bits that just make the song sound awfully nasty. His method of "fark it all" barrelling forward kind of buries this song into mediocrity, like a bull galloping on through the china shop, no consideration for anything else that may be going on around it. And of course the only thing that gets broken in *this* musical china shop are the songs themselves, which just crumble and become stomped to pieces by these tune killing vocals. This is one of the few pieces here that have this mysterious feel.
This one being a paranoid, stalking atmosphere punctuated by throaty guitars and a haunted chorus. It has this feel of early Leatherwolf, stripped to the raw claws and bared fangs. Unfortunately the vocals aren't up to the standards of the rest of the song, but it's still an entertaining piece that pulls off what intends with some manner of finesse. Saying that Rene has a "varied vocal" is the way to nicely say he sucks it behind the mic more often than not.

The big wall of sound can't save the title track that is cheesed up by some "heys" thrown out there in 80s style and a bumble for vocals. Some mundane Iron Maiden bits here too, but the track is mainly just a messy, disjointed thing, it's only outstanding quality being the guitars that are rammed down the eardrums without apology. Although it seems that some apologies should be needed since it's all just so gratingly boring.

"The Human Factor" is chunky soup thick, all the icky bits exposed around the can and all. The guitars here are industrialized metallic riffs slicing like jagged razor blades. It has a kinship along the lines of Blaze Bayley's solo material and atleast the ridiculous frontman antics here sort of fit, if in an awkward way. The verses are quickly unraveled and backed by humming bass and some messy sound effects. It sounds very much modern rock, and settles into a repetitious grinding rut that leaves the song steaming in its own pile of boredom and under the skin prickly irritation.

"Ghosts" is where the band truly shines. You can actually hear the Cage influences here, as well as Pink Cream 69 and several other bands mixing and blending. It's laidback, has more of a midtempo pacing, Rene's vocals held back to allow the song room to breathe and the instruments shine. There's a touch of otherworldly mystery here, and those progressive touches allow the band to move from the mundane to something more solid.

Overall "Times of No Trust" does nothing all that original to set it apart from many other bands. It's not a great debut by any means nor is it horrible, just falls into that tedious average medium that will leave this to fall into the cracks as the year passes on. The vocalist does nothing to elevate the material either, and a majority of their ideas are just borrowed from other bands and put through the "heavy" meat grinder. It almost feels industrial at times, as the gears continue grinding together. Not awful but in a year that is seeing an onslaught of quality releases, all that can be said really is - better luck next time.

Written by Alanna
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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Ratings

Alanna: 5/10

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