Pačess — Poupě

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I was thrilled with the beginning of the first song “Poupě.” It begins really softly and beautifully with the keyboards then hits with a guitar solo that rings out powerful and demanding attention. The rest of the band comes in like a force to be reckoned with then comes the vocals. It doesn’t seem like the vocalist is singing or screaming so much as speaking aggressively, and then when he did start to sing, I preferred the former. The singing sounded very strained, like maybe there were hands around his throat, or that he was out of breath. A lot of times the vocalist’s delivery sounds a lot like a carnie inviting someone to come try their chances at a nearly impossible game. He seems to be just talking in a harsh tone rather than performing vocals. Because of this style, a lot of the songs seem to sound the same when it comes to the vocals, so I had to really focus on the music to appreciate listening. However, I found it wasn’t the sound or tone I didn’t like, just the delivery.

I think he could be great at deathcore or death metal vocals if he did more actual screams. I see a lot of that potential in the fourth song “Butan-2,3-dion.” He does some parts that are much deeper than his typical sound. Plus, his overall sound is actually quite good. This is definitely a song where I liked the vocal work best. However, the next song “Tadeus” is where I was most bothered with the vocals. He almost sounds sick in this one at times. This album really had me torn, because I kept going back and forth with how I felt about it vocally, and I loved the guitars.

There are some truly powerful guitars in this album as demonstrated from the very beginning. I would say that’s definitely the most impressive part of it. There are several great solos, but I particularly enjoy the riffs in “Jako Most K Lidem.” And I’m not sure what is going on when “Reinheitsgebot” begins. It sounds like really fast circus music, or a super speed accordion mixed with metal. All of that is followed by a cool guitar riff back into the incredibly fast accordion-style sound. It was way too much. Sensory-overload. “Jménem Lilie” was a much better experience following the chaos of the previous song. I thought it was pretty cool actually. The riffs and the melody are really catchy. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album. The bonus track “Až Listy Zrudnou” is also pretty cool. These last two songs are definitely a great ending to the album — they went out with a bang. I would have loved more songs like these two.

Songwriting: 6
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 5
Production: 6