Published on Sep 5, 2001
I hate discs like this. There are so many discs in the metal
genre that I’ve tried listening to, and just haven’t been able to
get into. (The same, actually, could be said about many other
genres I’ve covered over the past 16 years, and not just metal.)
Then, there are those discs you’re ready to give up on, but
something convinces you to give them just one more chance.
This is the case with Sweden’s Steel Attack and their 1999 album
Where Mankind Falls. I spent the better part of six weeks
listening to this album, writing it off as typical Viking metal,
and shoving the disc back in the corner. Finally, over the Labor
Day weekend, I sat down with it and said, “Alright, I’m gonna get
to the bottom of this disc once and for all.”
In truth,
Where Mankind Falls is not always the easiest disc to get
worked up about. Early on, there are signs that the band – John
Allan, Andreas de Vera, Steve Steel and Dennis Vestman – are
walking on a musical path that has not only been previously laid,
but has been trampled on by thousands upon thousands of barre-chord
wanna-bes. On more than one occasion I was ready to toss in the
towel after only listening to the opening track “Dragon’s Skull”.
Lightning-fast guitar lines, double-bass kick drums, medieval
imagery… been there, done that, tossed the Dungeons & Dragons
dice down the toilet…
But where Steel Attack kept convincing me there was more to the
hackneyed formulaic rock was on the title track, a song which still
utilized some of the cliches, but worked in melody, harmony vocals
and intriguing playing to make any listener stop and think twice.
Maybe it was this one track that stuck in my mind and made me keep
giving
Where Mankind Falls chance after chance in the CD
player.
In truth, the album mixes these spots of hope among the
storyline that tries to tie everything together. And the more I
listened to the disc, the more I admitted there were parts of songs
like “Thunder Knight,” “The Creation Of Be-Lou” and “Holy Sea Of
Gold” that made me want to keep listening.
But Steel Attack seems to have a little difficulty establishing
their own unique sound and brand of songwriting. I know it can be
done, even as metal enters its fourth decade in existence
(depending, of course, on which album you call the birth of the
genre). So many other bands have done albums with themes of
warfare, Medieval times and good triumphing over evil, that often
it seems like Steel Attack is comfortable riding on those
coattails. Musically, the promise is there – though the next time,
I’d love it if the band members would list which instruments they
played. (No, I didn’t check their website this time around.) And,
yes, this album is now going on two years old, so one could assume
that Steel Attack has learned some things about their band and the
musical scene they’ve embraced.
Is
Where Mankind Falls a bad disc? No, but there’s not terribly
much new ground being broken by Steel Attack. This is a band who
sounds like they could have a decent enough future ahead of them –
that is, once they get comfortable in their own musical skin.