{"id":15874,"date":"2013-07-26T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T00:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=15874"},"modified":"2013-12-24T19:34:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-24T19:34:20","slug":"album-review-deadlock-the-arsonist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-deadlock-the-arsonist\/","title":{"rendered":"DEADLOCK – The Arsonist (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEADLOCK
The Arsonist<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nNapalm (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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While formed in 1997, metalcore band Deadlock didn\u2019t find their feet until 2002 when their debut album The Arrival<\/em> was released. It was the duo of the Earth.Revolt<\/em> (2005) and Wolves<\/em> (2007) albums that made the metal community stand up and take notice though, particularly with the latter\u2019s electronic touches. 2008\u2019s Manifesto<\/em> and 2011\u2019s underrated Bizarro<\/em> World brought little fanfare though as metalcore waned in popularity.<\/p>\n

The Arsonist<\/em> finds the German band trying to reclaim their name after the departure of founding vocalist \/ lyricist Joe Prem and it does a good job of establishing Deadlock as a continued force.<\/p>\n

The highlight here is rightfully the title track. Many people will likely argue this fact because it\u2019s one of the least \u201cmetal\u201d tracks on the album but clean vocalist Sabine Scherer sounds the best she ever has on it. Her vocals soar over the burnt growls and the song has a very melodic edge, burnt just enough by the mild electronics and bouncing guitars. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the Wolves<\/em> material.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hurt\u2019 is another powerful moment, led gently into the storm by Scherer\u2019s borderline symphonic vocals and an ever-so-subtle piano piece. It\u2019s a dynamic beast, finally exploding about three-fourths of the way through the song in a Savatage-esque way. \u2018The Great Pretender\u2019 also takes its place among the album\u2019s finest moments, launching the record from a bouncy but distinctly metal platform that has enough melody to catch your ear and enough heaviness to remind you that this isn\u2019t pop rock. \u2018My Pain\u2019 has an epic feel to it, and a dance heavy backbeat that immediately sets it apart from the pack, fully embracing both sides of the band without reservation. I\u2019d love to hear a whole album of songs like this. <\/p>\n

While I really love a lot of this album, it has a handful of forgettable moments as well. The cover of Bronski Beat\u2019s \u2018Smalltown Boy\u2019 is fair to middling but it wasn\u2019t that great of a song to start with. \u2018Dead City Sleepers\u2019 is another track that, although the album\u2019s heaviest moment, just never manages to really gel with the listener in my opinion. \u2018As We Come Undone\u2019 suffers largely the same fate, although neither are \u201cbad\u201d per se. <\/p>\n

Overall, this is probably Deadlock\u2019s best album since Wolves<\/em>, which I feel set the standard for metalcore at the time. It\u2019s a bit choppy of a ride but there are more than enough great moments to warrant picking this one up. It has a much more solid direction than the band\u2019s last album and just as many good songs. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEADLOCKThe Arsonist Napalm (2013)Rating: 7.5\/10 While formed in 1997, metalcore band Deadlock didn\u2019t find their feet until 2002 when their debut album The Arrival was released. It was the duo of the Earth.Revolt (2005) and Wolves (2007) albums that made the metal community stand up and take notice though, particularly with the latter\u2019s electronic touches. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,846],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-deadlock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15874"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15879,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions\/15879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}