Impellitteri - Pedal To The Metal

General Information

Original Author: Owen

Artist: Impellitteri

Album: Pedal To The Metal

Genre: Shred/Speed Metal

Tracklist

1. The Writings On The Wall
2. Crushing Daze
3. Destruction
4. Dance With The Devil
5. Hurricane
6. Judgment Day
7. The Iceman Cometh
8. P.U.N.K.
9. Propaganda Mind
10. Stay Tonight
11. The Fall Of Titus (American Metal vs. Swedish Metal)

Sound

5
Suddenly it hits you, immediately you are doused with some thudding rhythm and seriously fast lead playing and immediately you think of spandex, bad hair cuts and flying v's. Yes it's definitely speed metal and it sounds like a throwback to the 80's, the production is done relatively well, if nothing out of the ordinary, It strikes as just another speed metal album in a huge collection of them. Nothing new here then, you would hope the rest will be better.

Lyrics

0
Oh by god it isn't and I do mean, by god, this is one of the most preachy bands I've heard in a while, the entire emphasis of their lyrical passages seem to focus entirely on Christianity, how they are going to "Save the world" from mankind's original sin or something utterly preposterous.

I would tread through melted glass
Just to watch you pay for your sins

Yes, yes, very good, but do you have anything to say boys?

I hear that Satan's calling
For this world to end
He marches on with his masquerade
Taking God's good men
All the kings, the presidents
Sold their soul for greed
Now the world burns
For all of eternity
In his hell

You have got to be kidding me, they hear Satan's calling?

There we go people, greed has everything to do with Satan and nothing to do with yourselves. Don't worry its all cool.

But, just as you thought it couldn't get any worse, the singer begins to think he's in a Star Wars movie :

Come to the dark side

Okay, so they have a seriously cliched album title, some bad lyrics and a whole host of fast hair metal riffing. I would cry if I wasn't so corrupted by schadenfreude and busy laughing at them all. And, believe it or not, I have only taken examples from two tracks here, imagine how bad it would be if I took some extracts from the rest of it... oh wait here's some bad rhyming:

Dying soldier wounded
Gunshot to the head
Just an innocent man
And now he is dead

Oh spare me please... The lyrics are poorly thought out, corrupted by religious twaddle and in dire need of a rethink. I think I had better conclude this section before I start giving them negative points instead of just plain zero.

Vocals : 5 Yes, you get to hear the singers almighty range and "epic" voice, but again its so boringly standard for its genre that you can't help but yawn, quit the theatrics and write something emotionally charged!

Guitar Work

6
The only marginally redeeming point of the whole album, guitar work obviously takes a long time to develop to this level and some of it is pretty powerful stuff, but sometimes it just ascends so far up its own derriere in becoming so cheesy and boring. The chorus for Crushing Daze is just the perfect example of this, where they seem to be following the Dragonforce route of trying to sound like something out a video game. I want music! If I wanted bleedin' pac man I'd go and play that instead.

Overall Impression

3
This is a new millennium, time for some new music, because this is not it, we have a whole load of cheesy song titles/lyrics, see - Judgement Day and a whole load of daft, poorly executed concepts see - the Swedish v America antics on the last track of the album and the horribly daft track in the middle entitled P.U.N.K. Sure, its technically proficient, but it's unoriginal and scolding of us for our "sins". It's your mum combined with pac man, how hilariously awful. Pedal To The Metal? Yeah, to get as fast away from this as you can.