Gloomball - The Quiet Monster

Published March 29 2015

*=Staff's pick	The Quiet… Monster* Straight To Hell All Beauty Dies Towards The Sun* Sirens (Die Alone) One More Day* Sullen Eyes (Don't) Surrender Unbreakable Blood Red World* Blue Is Turning Into Gray

Genre	Alternative/Heavy Metal	Alen Ljubic	Vocals
Tracks	12	Björn Daigger	Guitar
Running time	51 Min.	Jossi Lenk	Guitar
Label	Steamhammer/SPV	Basti Moser	Bass
Release	March 27, 2015	Danny Joe Hofmann	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboard
Producer	Kristian Kohlmannslehner
Similar artists	---

Germany's alternative metallers Gloomball's second effort releases just before the two-year mark of the band's debut album The Distance. The Quiet Monster is as an entirety pretty much similar to its predecessor and the change of direction isn't particularly stretched, with a few small exceptions of being a little more attacking in the appearance and somewhat more hard-nosed.

The band has largely retained its style with principally heavy metal interlaced alternative metal. The vocal contribution of Alen Ljubic is pretty powerful and direct and it stylistically fits this type of music really well. The overall riffing is formed in the metal spirit, yet a little friendlier, more easily approachable and modern. The music features an energetic and positive vibe and this specific type of metal, which Gloomball represents, is on most points actually better than what their American influences and equivalents release, since those bands often have a weird and stupid thing for mixing completely irrelevant musical styles with their metal.

The album doesn't really contain any absolute killer tracks that will make you stand up in your home and shout the words out loud and that would make your neighbors seriously angry with you and your magnified noise level. The songs are generally accurate and captivating nevertheless, with only a barely noticeable amount of filling material involved. Thus, The Quiet Monster comes out as a highly pleasing release and ultimately a really solid effort. It's an adequate successor to the debut album and to my ears neither one is better nor worse than the other.