Watch Them Die – Bastard Son (Century Media)
By Chris Barnes
September 17, 2005

Watch Them Die is the latest grist from the Century Media mill, who have seemingly more releases per month than Peter North. That’s not to cast dispersions on Watch Them Die, after all they were birthed in the Bay Area, a geography rich in fast n’ heavy tradition and feature alum from Buzzov-en (or however you spell it, I’m too lazy to look) and OjoRojo. Not a bad resume and really not a bad album, even if it does leave a slightly acrid taste with all the Lamb of God-isms.

Musically, the title track has a nice classic metal vibe underneath all the vitriol, “Horizon” and “Onslaught” kicks all kinds of ass as does the meth-metal version of Bathory’s “Armageddon”. Real crowd pleasers to be sure. But with the good, comes some bad, there’s some real clunkers too, “Throne of Lies” with it’s femmy background vocals sounds downright fruity and breaks the otherwise splendidly aggro pace of the album. The string intro to “Born to Suffer” was a sure sign that the listener was about to be subjected a sonic nap, and at 7:05, is a real yawner. This should have been given to Katatonia or left on the cutting room floor. Vocally, if you like the Wall of Strep Throat sound of Randy Blythe or Ben Falgoust, you’ll like this too. If not, then…. Well.

Not a bad little New Wave of US Thrash release, sort of uneven and I can’t help thinking of Lamb of God every time I spin it. Not such a terrible thing, but takes away from the originality quotient a bit.


Visit the Watch Them Die website at www.watchthemdie.com

BOSWELL

Nice one, Barnes.

The sporadic strengths of the self-titled debut makes Watch Them Die one of the few new breed of three-word-or-more band names that doesn’t send me diving for the door. Sounds like the same problems that marred the first album have not been remedied. It is a bit frustrating, since there is the foundation of a rock-solid modern slightly crusty crossover/thrash album lurking behind the band’s scattershot sound, but they try a bit too hard to be epic by throwing everything and anything into the mix and end up being merely episodic--but when they are on thrashing task it is something to behold.

Just too damn busy for their own good, and a band that would benefit from stripping off the paint, decals, spoilers and ground effects to expose the old-fashioned battering primer grey soul smothered by the detailing, but I am still going to go along for the ride to see where it ends. Are they still employing those narrative vignettes and sound effects that are a bit pretentious and annoying?

Chris

No, no narratives or sound effects on this one... if they got rid of those fillers, this would be a damn fine record. The fillers drag down the pace in a big way.