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Soil - True Self


*
=Staff's pick

Fight For Life
Give It Up*
Pick Me Up*
The Last Chance
True Self*
Hear Me
Forever Dead*
Let Go
Until It's Over
Jaded
Threw it Away
One Last Song


Genre Heavy/Nu-Metal
A.J. Cavalier
Vocals
Tracks 12
Adam Zadel
Guitar
Runningtime 43 Min.
Shaun Glass
Guitar
Label DRT Entertainment Inc.
Tim King
Bass
Release 27 March 2006
Tom Schofield
Drums
Country USA
-
Keyboards
Similar artists Korn, Drowning Pool, Papa Roach, Disturbed

Chicago based band Soil was formed in 1997 and prior to True Self, which is their fourth album, the band made a change of vocalist. Their former vocalist Ryan McCombs left to fill the vacant spot in Drowning Pool and is being replaced in Soil by A.J. Cavalier. The band has played at festivals such as Ozzfest and Download and after an unsuccessful start with their EP El Chupacabra and their debut album Throttle Junkies they seem to be working their way up. Voices say that this album is supposedly a step away from the nu-metal and more rooted in metal, but True Self is the first I hear from Soil so do not hold me to those words.

Soil offer a strange yet homogenous mix and I had to listen quite a lot to this album before I could start trying to sort them out. The music bares clear marks of contemporary american metal and even if the traces of nu-metal are few, I fear that nevertheless that will be the general opinion about Soil so I might as well just give in to that. Soil feels to be a cross-section of contemporary american metal and sound like bands that I am not that familiar with. Heavy riffing, catchy melodies, aggressive attitude mixed with emotions, but what makes Soil keeping their head above the surface is that they have a maturity to their sound and further the apparent metal approach. As they manage to stay metal, the album True Self also offers a slick sounding commercial touch to the sound and it is hard to really put the finger on exactly how they sound.

This is in the outskirts of my knowledge but I feel that there is a Korn vibe in their music, especially with that can be heard in the track Forever Dead, and also the bands Papa Roach and Drowning Pool seem to be somewhere along the way in the same area as Soil. The most similarities, though, they share with Disturbed, not least with the title track that is a powerful track with intelligent melodies and that is high on emotion. There are not that many tracks that stick out on this album but in general the quality must be considered fairly good.

Give It Up is an up-tempo track with bite and has a little of Damageplan aggression with chugging guitars and a refrain that is a catchy and powerful adrenaline riser, easily one of the better tracks on the album. Last track that ought to be mentioned is Pick Me Up which kicks some butt as well. It shows a good balance between the heavier side and the slick harmless sound, also this one has heavy chugging guitars and some aggression in the verses combined with playful vocal lines while the refrain is very melodic and harmlessly aggressive.

As I have not heard the band earlier I can't say what the change of vocalist have meant, but A.J. Cavalier fills the spot in a great way. He has a good range to his voice and can sing with an aggressive tone just as he manages calm and emotional parts really well. To put down the final words it feels to me that Soil is a very contemporary band and I think they will have troubles of reaching out to a wider audience, either they will be too much nu-metal for the metal fans or too much metal for the Nu- metal fans.

I don't think that Soil will make any lasting impressions, not in the history of music or with me but it is rather entertaining for the while being, and well performed I must say. And the more you listen to it the more it grows on you as you find more nuances.

See also review of: Whole

Production
Vocals
Compositions

8

8

7

 
Summary



7,5 chalices of 10 - Thomas

Related links:

http://www.soil-music.com
http://www.myspace.com/soil