Damageplan - New Found Power
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Wake Up |
| Genre | Heavy Metal |
Pat Lachman
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 14 |
Dimebag Darrel
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Guitar
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| Runningtime | 62 Min. |
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Guitar
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| Label | Elektra |
Bob Zilla
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Bass
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| Release | 26 Feb. 2004 |
Vinnie Paul
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Drums
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| Country | USA |
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Keyboards
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| Similar artists | Pantera, Stonesour, Machine Head | ||
New Found Power, that most be one of the most suiting
names for an album like this, there's so much power on this album that
it has to be more than just new found, the studio in which they recorded
this album must have a nuclear power plant as its closest neighbour,
that's how much power you get pouring out of your speakers when playing
New Found Power loud on your stereo.
Pantera was brought to an definite end after some stormy last years
of existence and the two brothers, Dimebag and Vinnie Paul carried on
with forming a new band entitled Damageplan, they must have gathered
energy out of the mess that ended Pantera and I guess they are filled
with revenge to show the world they are still to be reckoned with, and
that is how it sounds on their debut album.
The vocals in Damageplan are handled by Pat Lachman that was a guitarist in Halford and Diesel Machine, and as the slot for guitar was filled and as he wanted to be in the band he changed from guitar to vocals instead. He has the aggressive scream with anger type of vocals but not as angry as in deathmetal and as it would turn out he has a softer more emotional side as well. The line-up is then completed with Bob Zilla on the bass, who is a tattoo artist and bass player that has been playing with smaller local acts and that is a friend to the brothers.
As the first track starts I quickly come to realise how much that I have missed those bonecrunching riffs from Dimebag that was somewhat of a foundation in Pantera and those squeaking guitar sounds that can be made as his trademark, just got to love that. The first three tracks is hard and heavy as I was expecting and assumed that this would be the case for the entire album, power and aggression in beautiful harmony and I would have been satisfied with that. But with the fourth track, Pride, a change appears, the vocals are less aggressive and more melodic and the song has a catchy and melodic refrain still based around the heavy riffing, some will probably dismiss this as a sell-out but I really like it and don't care what others say about it. This "softer" side occurs with the excellent tracks Save Me and In The Blink Of An Eye as well and the final track Soul Bleed, a ballad of the softer kind that reminds me a lot of Alice In Chains.
Explode turned out to be one of my favourites on the album, heavy riffs and a simple drum rhythm with vocals that build the tension until the chorus comes and the song simply explodes, the chorus is more or less just the word explode being screamed out in anger by Pat Lachman, a simple but damn good song that raises the adrenaline level to maximum. And it would be really funny to see a video on MTV or a live performance in American television of the track Fuck You, that is a fast and aggressive track with the word fuck in practically every sentence, would be a lot of beeping there.
Damageplan has done a great effort with this album, it
is a perfect replacement for those of us that misses Pantera. It is
hard to avoid the comparisons with Pantera even if Damageplan deserves
a reputation of their own, and since the foundations is based around
the heavy riffing with a power-groove and when half of Damageplan comes
from Pantera it gets pretty obvious that there must be similarities.
Even if some of the fourteen songs can be seen, not as fillers, but
a bit weak and a bit simple in some cases even if they are few, there
is at least a huge amount of power in every single one of the tracks,
New Found Power that is.
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Production
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Vocals
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Compositions
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8 |
7 |
9 |
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Summary
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9 chalices of 10 - Thomas |
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