Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Iron Reagan - Spoiled Identity

I'm a slow writer

Obviously, this is gonna be a short one, I've only got so much to work with here.

But it's all so goddamned awesome.

Really, Spoiled Identity is the latest EP from the crossover supergroup and contenders for the Best Band Name Ever award, Iron Reagan.  Sporting thirteen tracks and clocking in at a whopping five whole minutes, this whole ordeal just never takes its foot off the gas.  And, in a testament to how blistering and straightfoward and to-the-point the whole album is.  I'm gonna do something a little different, something to give y'all some insight as to how I write reviews.  After this next sentence, I'm going to finish this review in the time it takes for this EP to finish.  In five minutes, the rest of it will be done.

START THE TIMER!

Basically if you were a fan of Municipal Waste's first full length, Waste 'em All, you're gonna find more of the same here, with some added punkiness ala M.O.D. and the other assorted acronyms you all know so well.  Foresta's vocals are at their most vicious here, with the lyrics being as inconsequential as always, if steeped in politics and violence like always.  Really, this is just the logical continuation of Worse than Dead, so if you dug that album as much as I did, you're going to be more than satisfied with Spoiled Identity.  In fact, I'm blown away that what is essentially a collection of throwaway microsongs can still end up being so intense, memorable, and well executed.  I mean really, only three songs are longer than thirty seconds, with one of them (the best one, "Cops Don't Like Me") having a nine second sample to start it off.

There's a surprising amount of variety here, from the hyperblasting one-note insanity of "Your Kid's an Asshole", to the deep death metal vocal stylings of "I Spit on Your Face/Grave", and the punky melody of "Cops Don't Like Me".  It's a five minute burst of thrash/punk insanity and there's only so much that can logically be said about it.

Time's up, album's over, it's great, go get it, it's free.


RATING - 93%

7 comments:

  1. You probably should have made this your April fool´s joke. I mean 93% for this effortless and retarded piece of shit? Maybe we'll even see this on your end of the year best albums list?

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    1. It's simple, a couple of perpetually stoned slackoffs managed to pack more enjoyment into a five minute blast of nonsense than an allegedly brilliant and world famous keyboardist could in nearly an hour of orchestrations.

      And if you're not the Duck Tales Guy, well then I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe some day you'll learn how to have fun.

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    2. To be honest BH I rather doubt that was DTG as I've seen a fair share of butthurt comments here in the past, but I figured it'd be completely awesome in the 1% chance I was right.

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    3. (I'm the first guy who wrote). I'm not the duck tales guy. I agree that that album was gay and boring and don't share the autism. I was just naturally curious, rather in disbelief, that something of such low quality can ever be given a 93% at all. Especially by the author whose musical taste is kind of similar to mine.

      Maybe this whole review was written with sarcasm. In that case I seem to be the only guy who didn't get the joke. But I did not sense much of it in the review. Definitely not enough to warrant a 93%.

      A little comparison might be handy. BH gave Ensiferum's masterpiece - Iron (2004) a 87% score.

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    4. Ah, well in that case I apologize for inferring you were such a disagreeable individual. :P

      Eh, I'd actually agree with his Iron review; some great tracks there but it lags a bit in the middle.

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    5. I personally think this is worth a 93% because there's very little I would change about it. It does what it sets out to do absolutely marvelously. It's an unremitting blast of fury with no other ideas behind it, and it's done very well so there's really no need for other ideas. Iron Reagan is a one-note band, not gonna argue against that, but I think they do that one note brilliantly, so I love it.

      Re: Ensiferum: I'm not about to go back and read my justification for Iron's score since anything written before like, 2009ish is probably irredeemably terrible if it's coming from me, but my opinion is probably the same nowadays, six years later. The good tracks are among their best, but the interlude is completely pointless and Tears is awful and entirely unnecessary. Back then I used to score each track 1-10 and average the score (because I was an idiot), but I'd probably still put it at around 87%. The good tracks are great but there's some unnecessary filler there that bogs it down a tad (something of a trademark of Jari's, if you haven't noticed).

      Keep in mind 87% is hardly a bad score :p

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