Chugga Chugga Nu Metal - "Coma of Souls" Review (0%)
If you have been following my reviews on this site, you may have noticed that all of my reviews have been positive so far.
Frankly, I feel that I should change that. While it's good to be positive and review albums that one likes, a collection of nothing but positive reviews might make one wonder what exactly constitutes a bad album.
Well, today I will explain what makes a bad album. Here is chugga chugga juggalo nu metal at its worst - Kreator.
If you are unfamiliar with the term "chugga chugga", just listen to this "Coma of Souls" album or any other nu metal album - by Kreator, Machine Head or Limp Bizkit - and try to describe the sound of the guitars. That's "chugga chugga".
Simply put, Kreator's most praised album is a soulless chugfest of nu metal devoid of anything that might comprise a good heavy metal album. Even shitty contemporaries such as Brain Drill and Slipknot at least have a decent riff or two scattered amongst an album of chugga chugga trash.
On "Coma of Souls" there is nothing but chugs of the most generic nature and the occasional attempt at a mediocre single note "riff". CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA! From a technical standpoint, Kreator is definitely incapable of playing even the simplest and most bland music, in addition to the songwriting on this album being simply atrocious in every way possible.
"Coma of Souls" is the album that brought nu metal to the forefront of the extreme metal scene, a scene in which Kreator were never welcome.
Chugga Chugga Nu Metal
As mentioned before, the guitarists play nothing but chugga chugga chugga "grooves". There is no point in specifying a single song to exemplify this here because this dominates literally every song here.
When they attempt a riff, the riff ends up either being hidden under more chugging - e.g., "World Beyond" at 1:40 - or sounds stale, mallcorish and basically just a half-assed copy of a better Sodom or Slayer riff - e.g., "Agents of Brutality" at 0:52 and 1:46, "Hidden Dictator" at 1:08 respectively.
There is basically no variation here whatsoever and it becomes old before the first song of the album is over. Speaking of that, the first song, "When the Sun Burns Red", features some of the dullest attempts at making nu metal melodic. From 1:30 on to a bit past the 3 minute mark, the song just plods along, chugging along like there's no tomorrow, until a "soft" chorus comes in to let the listener know that nu metal can also be emo.
This is not what thrash metal is about! Listen to Slayer. Listen to Sodom. Listen to Bathory. Listen to Destruction. Listen to some old Metallica. That’s how you play thrash metal! Not this chugga chugga garbage. This is diluted Slipknot crap and says a lot about the failures of modern thrash metal. This is nothing more than a juvenile, amateur proto-Machine Head chugfest showing off how "br00tal" they are by playing the same single note riff over the course of an entire album.
My next criticism is directed toward the drums. Fuck these things are triggered horribly! Simply put, this could have easily been written in Fruity Loops or Garageband. In addition, the drum fills implemented here are just not very interesting.
I know it’s cool to play in a d-beat for an entire album, but if it's boring, nobody will care. And Kreator is no Discharge, they don't have a fraction of the skills it takes to create something like "Hear Nothing [...]".
Overall, "Coma of Souls" is one of the least interesting nu metal chugfests I've ever heard. Everything here is forced to the point where there is no life in this music whatsoever. The songwriting here, if you can call it that, is simply atrocious in pretty much every conceivable way. I don't care how "br00tal" a nu metal bands want to be, if they write vapid music like this, I will promptly dismiss them.
In conclusion, "Coma of Souls" had a quite ironic title because, as this is one of the most glaring examples of the decline of thrash metal that has been going on over the past few decades, its music is so bland that it will result in a coma.
At the same time, it's one of the least memorable albums I've ever heard.
Kreator are the prototype for the Linkin Parks, the Korns and the Machine Heads that would form shortly after the release of this album. The definition of an overrated nu metal band.
Coma of Souls score: 0/100.
Support the Underground
