Album Review - The Great Sabatini
The Great Sabatini
Sad Parade of Yesterdays
http://www.myspace.com/thegreatsabatini
Genre: Metal / Down-tempo / Psychedelic
Location: Quebec, Canada
http://www.myspace.com/thegreatsabatini
Genre: Metal / Down-tempo / Psychedelic
Location: Quebec, Canada
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Review by Isaac Thompson
Review by Isaac Thompson
Despite being known for their bombastic style that combines stoner rock with metalcore, the first sounds that the Great Sabatini subject the listener to on “Sad Parade of Yesterdays” are actually quite delicate and pretty.
The first track, ‘Nametag’, begins with a brooding, slowly strummed acoustic guitar and a lush tinkering of strings in the background. ‘Nametag’ is the lullaby that eases you to sleep just in time for the nightmare to begin. The demons, ghouls and goblins living in your subconscious are waiting for you on the other side:
Enter track 2, ‘Rosemary’s Abortion’
‘Rosemary’s Abortion’, unleashes a monster guitar riff that sets the tone for the album; tight grooves, sludgy guitars, down-tuned bass riffs and trachea-tearing screams. I guess the simplest way to describe the band’s sound would be this:
If Sepultura and Black Sabbath had a baby, and the surrogate mother of that baby was the members of Kyuss, and then when it was born the baby was baptised by Page Hamilton, that baby would be named ‘The Great Sabatini’.
Every member of the Great Sabatini contributes vocals, and the use of additional vocalists becomes fully taken advantage of on ‘Robots’. Screams wrap around screams as the music pounds away to an industrial sounding beat. This is an album that refuses to let up. It corners the listener, locks the door behind it and then delivers a savage, hour long beat-down. ‘Fire and Flood’ and ‘Lincoln Continental Breakfast’ rain down like oversized hailstones, smashing everything in sight.
There is a brief calm in the aural assault during ‘Pale Blue Dot’, another thrasher of a track, when the music builds to a wailing crescendo that stops abruptly and is replaced by a funky, half time guitar riff and a head swaying rhythm. Just a tiny breather before the chaos returns.
“Birth of The Cruel” is a standout track that’s tucked away towards the end of the album. It’s a schizophrenic song that begins with a creepy echo of bass and a slow Sabbath style intro full of sustained chords and kickass string bends.
The Great Sabatini is a band who seem to have little to no interest in vocal melodies. The whole album is screamed and although the screams are often rhythmic and interesting they never come close to actual melody. There are a million metal bands that overlook melody, but the thing that sets the Great Sabatini apart from those bands is that the music itself is loaded with melody. The stuff going on with the guitar, bass and drums is so damn catchy you’ll be humming it for weeks.
Another thing that separates this album from a lot of indie heavy metal bands is that it sounds like a million bucks. The production and mixing work here is fantastic. It is a crisp sounding record, the kind that a band spends a lot of time and money on. There is an immaculate polish to the mix that meshes so well with the brutally furious and intense performances.
“Sad Parade of Yesterday” is a really enjoyable heavy metal album. It’s somewhat overlong and the lack of vocal melody made a few songs bleed together for me, but it’s a solid effort from a talented band with a lot of vision.
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Don't forget to check out The Great Sabatini TOMORROW NIGHT @ Gus' pub w/ The Nymphets, Fistfight & Cicada!
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