XCentrik- Welcome to the War
(BioMechanical Music)
XCentrik- Welcome to the War
(BioMechanical Music)
From Aural Innovations #39 (May 2008)
XCentrik is a new Danish band who plays emotional heavy metal music. That
is not really new is it??? But what is new is that these guys don’t try
to sound like another band and have a bit of their own thing going on and write
some interesting lyrics as well. This is a CD that really grows on you. Welcome
to the War, a political number, begins quite spacey with some synth pads and
strange sounds as the intensity slowly builds and the heavy yet melodic riffs
kick in. The vocalist take a little bit to get into but he serves the music
well. He actually sings and has a certain intensity… Domino starts with
a dark bass line before the acoustic guitar and then a slow heavy groove takes
foot. Gertrudestein is pretty psyched out at the beginning and then drops the
bomb, and enters into a steady heavy groove. The band experiment with some keyboards
at the end. Sweet Idol has this funny swing to it and the singer speaks in
the same kind of voice as the guy who was cruising with the Aliens at the end
of the 5.15 CD (Electric Camembert from the Moon), but then the track goes into
some sort of bad soul disco like thing…what the fuck is going on and then
back but now with some more heavy riffing… Strange and interesting but
I am sure it really works? Spinning kicks straight in with a metal riff but
then it drops down into a funky tune a bit like the old Limbomaniacs stuff.
Really dig the guitar solo… hope it is longer live! Color and Light is
a short 2½ minute piece with highly effected vocals pushed to the back.
Fabulous Machine begins slowly with some boring keyboards but nice melodic guitar,
which decides to really take off and fly but then gets cut off by the singer.
Later he plays perhaps his best solo of the whole record. Vanity features more spoken word vocals and a slow methodical pace. The CD ends with The End
of Nowhere and is again starts quite spacey and slowly builds up. Great song.
This CD has 9 tracks and 7 of them are completely different from each other.
Massive variety here and good to see a band just doing what they want as most
Danish bands are following the crowd…not these guys…
Check out the band web site at: http://www.myspace.com/xcentrikuniverse
Reviewed by Scott Heller