Bavarian death metallers Deadlock provide a strange mix of genres on their fourth album, Bizzaro World. What makes this album so strange is their schizophrenic genre hopping tendencies. One second I think I’m listening to melodic death metal and the next I’m certain they got Vanessa Carlton to moonlight on some songs. The first song is AWESOME, so awesome that “awesome” must be in all capitals. “Virus Jones” is such a gripping track; sweeping leads, pummeling rhythm guitar lines, thundering bass and awesome interaction between Johannes Prem and Sabine Weniger on vocals. Hell, even the melodic break about halfway through the song is acceptable given the sheer amount of ass that “Virus Jones” kicks.
Most of the songs on this album follow the previous example and there isn’t a thing wrong with that, a little bit of Gothenburg never hurt anyone, right?
Once in a while the Vanessa Carlton comes out in Sabine Weniger with the piano parts and I begin questioning what I’m listening to. Luckily, they usually shift out of that before things get too out of hand and they jump into the pop-metal zone. This is the sort of album that’s good, but not very unique. Listeners will enjoy it each time they throw it on, but they may not remember to throw it on enough for it to become a favorite. Even so, I think it’s a catchy slab of metal that pays tribute to the Gothenburg style that died out in favor of metalcore so many years ago.
In A Word: Throwback
