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Nato: Kill the fox to foil the plan

18/11/08 || The Duff

It’s tough sometimes to pick albums from bands you’ve never heard of before; with a title like “Kill the Fox to Foil the Plan”, I figured I’d be in for the best of the three bands I had selected by chance (other two namely Mendeed and Akrival), as I associated such a well thought out title with bands like Red Sparowes and Battle of Mice. Picture me in my room, playing the greatest driving game of our times, “Burnout 3”, the intro subsides, and the worst music I’ve heard in a long time save the shit they play in the gymnasium when I’m getting lean on squat thrusts comes through my speakers, and I’m gutted; the will to live is gradually drained by this stuff, let me tell you.

Searching a little about the band, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head – this has been branded “heavy/death” metal. The elements are there, in part, but with the usual shitty, faux, lackadaisical attitude I’m beginning to associate with Rising Records and the pain experienced taking a piss post-op circumcision; melodic leads, chug-riffs, casual blast beats, the occasional death metal riff that consists of furiously picking the same three notes “w/ mean-face”, the rest easily described as emo-shit but nonetheless bearable, but then oh fuck me sideways if the vocals don’t rim a prolapsed rectum that has suffered a bukake in a porno take of the film “Multiplicity” starring cum-legend Peter North.

The pluses, these guys can play; they are gifted musicians, and they’ve been given a very sweet budget. The pinch harmonics squeal with the same kind of intensity as Zakk Wylde, minus the out-of-this-world vibrato, so you can be rest assured that no expense was spared during the production. The music reminds me of melodic death metal, I guess, more than anything, although occasionally the band’ll throw out a fancy lead like a weak Necrophagist. Unfortunately, these are out of place, and seem to be simply a measure of potential for fans who think the music used to complete this balancing act of harsh n’ heavy/hip n’ slick (the latter preferably. played “w/ sad-face”), namely the very terrible emo-core (I honestly have no clue what emo-core is, but somehow I’m labeling this as such – go figure), dull, usual chug-riff hardcore breakdowns makes ‘em a little bit of a group of pussies and not the “heavy/death” band they’ve been suggested as.

So the vocals, which will kill this album’s hope of making it in any metalheads stereo, cannot be faulted for their range; Jay Norman and Ross Rothero-Bourge are trying to make this very vocally versatile, it’s just that absolutely all of it is very, very bad, from the low end, tired grunts to the mid-range screeches (if you thought Black Dahlia Murder were annoying, just add an even more grating raspiness and see how long you hold out) to the lame, “emotive” clean singing that sounds about as dreary as it can get. Once more Regain Records have a gifted band that offers nothing and yet is rendered from boring to completely horrible by vocalists who have been brought up on music where it’s thought that guttural/raspy singing is an artform, an expression of self, and it just doesn’t fly with this fucko here.

3 bands that aren’t Battle of Mice out of 10.

Information
Released: 2007
Label: Rising Records
Website: Nato MySpace
Band
Jay Norman: vocals, guitar
Mike Henderson: guitars
Ross Rothero-Bourge: drums, vocals
Ben Charles: guitars

Tracklist
01. Intro
02. Last goodbye
03. Martyr dying
04. Kill ‘em dead cowboy!
05. Devil’s house of mirrors
06. My cortina tragedy
07. Ballroom dance with angels and demons
08. Red rose deception
09. Thorns without a halo
10. Interlude
11. I am Alcatraz
12. Bleed the mechanism

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