Utter sh*t…
Released through Sharptone Records on 4 November 2016
Reviewed by someone who’d prefer not owning up to listening to it over and over again on purpose in the futile attempt to find something of value contained within…
Utter shit.
That’s it. End of review.
But, if you want more than two words to sum up this Shark Sandwich of an album, here goes:
From the band’s promo: “Attila has grown up with this album, but we’re still ourselves, because it’s not boring dad rock or something… It’s still offensive. It’s still edgy. It’s still in your face. We knew going into making this record that we’d be combining different ideas while still keeping our signature sound. Every song has purpose and it’s something you can feel when you’re listening to the entire album.”
Where to begin? Well, unless your Dad was born in the 90s, then I s’pose it’s not “dad rock”. As for the “boring” bit, well, let’s see. Attila’s music has never amounted to much more than a bunch of nu metal string-bendy riffs, dissonant guitar lines that wind in and out of the tedium, sadly unforgettable bad(ass) choruses, scrotum-swinging breakdowns for added in-your-faced-ness and puerile profanities and death metal grunts cobbled together into some facile parody of all that they believe that they embody. Boring? Very.
“Offensive”? So, to the lyrics: “Fuck your shit / I stay sick / If you don’t like it you can suck this dick”. Deep, meaningful stuff I think you’ll agree. Like on all of their albums, the word “fuck” makes many an appearance on the album, usually something along the lines of “fuck off” or “bad motherfuckers” or some other variation of (bad ass) fuckery thrown in. There’s plenty mention of partying and drugs and getting high and not giving a fuck about those that dare (but probably don’t give a shit about) their bad ass lifestyle so I suppose that counts as “edgy”. And as “purpose”, yes? “Grown up”? Oh yeah, for sure.
For a band that claims to epitomise badassedness (I think it’s a word), on all of their albums there’s an evident need to write numerous “songs” in defence of their “lifestyle” and so opener ‘Ignite’ continues this tradition: “It’s about that time / This the year / We take shit off the internet / And settle it in the streets Motherfucker”. And there are a bunch of other lyrics across the album where they reiterate this stance without ever divulging what exactly this lifestyle is. I think – and I might be wrong here – but I think Attila want us to know that they’re pissed off and have hard lives and they want everyone to know about it but not comment upon it, even though they do because as they make clear, Attila read the “shit off the internet”. Hmm… But, y’know, whatever, they “don’t give a damn what people say”.
What I do admire about Attila is their production, by which I mean the production of Attila as commodity. And a well-crafted one at that. They’ve nailed it. They’ve copied+pasted their riffs, their beats, their structures, their lyrics and their bling-and-tattoo image from all the right sources, stuck them together and delivered nothing of any substance. Every time someone writes anything critical about them – justified or otherwise (and there’s a lot of it!) – they get another track out of it, dissing the haters one more time to fortify their image as “bad boys” who “take no shit” from anyone. It’s the complete package. And they have an audience waiting to lap it up.
There’s fuck all musical worth, lyrical inspiration, intelligent insight or biting social commentary anywhere on this piece of shit album. Attila would be controversial if there was any depth to anything they produced. A bricolage of depthless styles, it fails to recognise itself as little more than parody. I just hope that this review goes some way in inspiring another vitriolic defence of their parodic lifestyle and I can in some way bask in reflected glory.
Anyway, to save Attila and their fans the time and effort: Fuck me!
Oh, and if you didn’t get it, that bit about inspiring the band – that’s irony.
Track list:
- Ignite
- Bulletproof
- Public Apology
- Obsession
- Moshpit
- Rise Up
- Let’s Get Abducted
- Legend
- Queen
- All Hail Rock And Roll
- King
Loved this one Jason…the review I mean. Badassedness? Badacidness more like.
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