I popped this album in my CD player and immediately began looking through the insert. I had a record label rep tell me one time that they don’t even listen to demos with promo and press kits that look bad because it means that a band hasn’t put enough effort forth from a work standpoint. Due to the really poor looking CD insert, I was expecting total garbage. I was completely and totally surprised by what poured off my speakers.
What MAN OF THE HOUR starts off with is a slightly thrashier base of NEVERMORE and adds everything else from there. The vocalist even likes to try and even imitate Warrel Dane most of the time. Beyond that, it’s a mix of groove metal, modern thrash, traditional metal, and I even found a MORBID ANGEL riff floating around in there, along with a single note breakdown in one song. The vocals tend to hang on a Warrel Dane imitation most of the time, as well as throwing in a high pitched 3 INCHES OF BLOOD styled high pitch scream, and even a few harsh death grunts (almost as much as INTO ETERNITY).
Due to the quality of the music on “Destroy the Machines Of Slaughter”, it gets a good rating. There some downsides which I won’t deduct anything for, and for good reasons. The first are the lyrics, which are pretty easy to understand, but come off as a shallow attempt at silly humor. I’m not against any such attempt, it’s just that the humor in this instance isn’t very clever. The second thing, which people will surely hate me for saying, is the imagery presented from the mish-mash insert. The art, the text, the pictures, and the layout are all poorly done, featuring no theme. It’s like someone with schizophrenia did the insert. And here’s the portion of the imagery that I’m sure is going to get people mad enough to make posts, is that the image the band portrays is like rag-tag band of mercenaries who’ve met for the first time, and have yet to change into their fatigues. From the overweight shaven-head bass player wearing flannel, to the tall thin HATEBREED shirt sporting super slob, the stylish looking European power metal vocalist, the leather jacket sporting 80’s thrasher to the baseball hat, mini goatee sporting bro who could be anyone you know at the bar, these guys do not look good together!
My job as a reviewer of course is to review the music, not CD inserts, or to judge a bands image or how hard they work, or at least I think that’s what it is anyways, since I’ve read reviewers critique those aspects as well. The music can be a slight bit of a grab bag, but it’s all pretty much real metal, and done extremely well, extremely fun, and as a result, it comes off as pretty original. Unfortunately for MAN OF THE HOUR, they may need to put effort forth beyond their music in order for a larger label to notice them.
8/10
The Official Man Of The Hour Website
Man Of The hour At MySpace
