Year : 2015
Style : Melodic Death Metal , Female vocals
Country : United States
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans + Video
Size : 165 mb
Bio:
When people think of Logan Mader, they remember flying dreads, a flying V and deadly volume, dealing with likes of Machine Head and Soulfly. Hard to believe but it’s been 12 years since Logan set foot onstage.Now a gold record music producer/ mixer (Five Finger Death punch, Gojira, Periphery, etc), Mader wrote off the performing part of his life and settled behind the scenes. Still, something within him stirred.Former Roadrunner chief, now Nuclear Blast Entertainment head, Monte Conner, sent newcomer and multi-instrumentalist Lauren Hart, to Logan for a production deal. A creative spark between the two forged the nexus of Once Human as Hart moved from guitars to vocals, unsheathing a throat-scarring level of vocal brutality that completely contradicts her soft appearance. Unexpectedly, the result brought Mader back to creative life as both artist and performer.“The Creative chemistry was so on fire and the music really spoke to me. In all of my years producing, I’ve never been so attached and excited about a developing project." Logan continues, “It’s a mix of brutal metal and melodic epic, with cinematic textures. It’s unique and really has its own identity.”Logan is not closing his studio doors for producing however. “I can do it all.” He said.The rhythm section of Once Human consists of Damien Rainaud on Bass, and Ralph Alexander on Drums. Both Newcomers and both insanely talented.Once Human has inked a deal with earMUSIC, a newly formed distribution partnership through eOne Music in North America, who will be unveiling their debut album in Fall 2015. Witness the sound of a new steel being forged. Once Human has arrived.
Album:
Once Human’s debut album.Logan Mader has been absent from the stage for a long time. After the former Machine Head and Soulfly axeman’s attempt to front nu metal band Stereo Black failed to pick up significant interest, he retreated to the production table for the next decade, helping bands such as Cavalera Conspiracy, Gojira, Fear Factory and SepticFlesh to achieve such high quality sound on their releases. Gone were the green dreadlocks and flying V guitars of old. However, after being introduced by Monte Conner (former Roadrunner and current Nuclear Blast Records A&R guru) to a young musician called Lauren Hart, though, something clicked and led the pair to form a new band, the melodeth juggernaut of Once Human. Now after a year in the shadows, and signed to earMUSIC (responsible for releasing such acts as DragonForce and BABYMETAL to European stores), they emerge, complete with Mader’s new blonder dreadlocks, with debut effort “The Life I Remember”.Theatrics are a key point to developing the atmosphere in this album, with nearly 3 minutes of orchestration meandering into the crushing riffs of ‘Ground Zero’. Hart’s vocals are extremely vicious and complement the subtle orchestrations and Mader’s excellent guitar playing, showing that he hasn’t lost his touch in his 12 years out of the game. Terrific musicianship is a staple of this album, with the riffs of ‘You C*nt’ a particular highlight. Meanwhile, Lauren Hart seems to always know what sort of vocal style works best for the song in particular. ‘Pick Your Poison’ has moments where the song can easily slip into a rip-off of The Agonist, but maintaining the harsh vocal style she’s perfected keeps it going. At the same time, starting from ‘Devil Can Have You’, the latter end of the album is full of clean vocals, which manages to keep Once Human distinct enough to avoid claims of just being another Arch Enemy clone. Traces of metalcore (such as in the ruthless ‘Terminal’) are welcome changeups to keep the album going at the same ferocious pace non-stop.The main problem is consistent within this effort. ‘You C*nt’ is a great track, but it is somewhat taken down a bit by its incredibly blunt and dunderheaded lyrics, which are a real sore spot in this album. It takes a lot of work to be able to tune out these lyrics (including “Your diagnosis, 666!” during ‘Terminal’) at times as they can become rather jarring, but if you can tune them out then you have a fantastic album. This isn’t to say that all of Hart’s lyrics are bad, but the moments where her songwriting falters are all too often the moments that you’ll remember when listening to the album. There is also the very real risk of songs blending into each other, because there is a real lack of unique selling point within this band and a very one-dimensional (albeit extremely well executed) approach being taken here.All in all, this is a fantastic first effort but the band really has a lot of growing to do to really stand out in the melodeth scene. First rate riffs and musicianship will only get you so far if you can’t expand your sound to make yourself noticeable in an already diluted scene, while the lyrics need to iron out the flaws to avoid becoming too jarring. Some lessons to be learned, but a fantastic effort nonetheless. The band may have stuck to what they know, but boy do they know what they’re doing.
Line Up:
Lauren Hart - Vocals (2015-present)
Skyler Howren - Guitars (2015-present) - See also: ex-Death Machine Weapons
Logan Mader - Guitars (2015-present) - See also: ex-Machine Head, ex-Soulfly, ex-Blue, ex-Idol-X, ex-Logan Mader / J.S. Clayden, ex-Medication, ex-New Black, ex-Pale Demons, ex-Stereo Black
Damien Rainaud - Bass (2015-present) - See also: Anthropia, ex-Assacrentis, ex-Hamka
Dillon Trollope - Drums (2015-present)
Tracklist:
01. Trail of Tears 01:20 instrumental
02. Ground Zero 05:12
03. You Cunt 03:04
04. Pick Your Poison 03:47
05. Terminal 03:11
06. Demoneyes 04:16
07. Devil Can Have You 03:27
08. Time of the Disease 04:31
09. I Am War 01:51
10. The Life I Remember 03:43
11. Siren 01:37 instrumental
12. Growing Colder 04:49
+ Video "You Cut" (Official Video)
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