ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 46 VOLBEAT - BEYOND HELL/ABOVE HEAVEN (2010)

[RJhog (Admin)]

1. The Razor And The Ripper *

2. Heaven Nor Hell

3. Who They Are *

4. Fallen *

5. A Better Believer

6. 7 Shots *

7. A New Day *

8. 16 Dollars

9. A Warrior's Call

10. Magic Zone

11. Evelyn

12. Being 1

13. Thanks

 

Take the following, punk, rock’n’roll, rockabilly, metal, heavy metal, thrash metal, country and even a bunch of other stuff and throw it in a blender.  Put the resulting mix on a CD and you have Volbeat.  Volbeat's fourth and latest album, Beyond Hell/Above Heaven is this week's Album Of The Week.  I discovered this band here on this site.  Back in October of last year, Niels posted five songs from the album in an edition of New Music Corner (the five songs are marked with an asterisk).  This was Niels' first attempt at NMC, and he knocked it out of the park as far as I'm concerned, because I bought another album from that post as well.  And I'm here to thank Niels for this, because this album smokes!  And believe me, every one of those influnces listed above can easily be picked out when you give this a listen.

 

Who They Are sounds like Metallica.  Fallen sounds like Collective Soul.  A New Day sounds like Queens Of The Stone Age.  Now, when I make those statements, I don't necessarily mean the whole song sounds like those bands.  For the most part, it's just the beginning of the song.  You will also hear a touch of double bass drumming, twin guitars, screaming, growling, banjo, and harmonica.   A Warriors Call even uses Michael Buffer's famous "Let's Get Ready To Rumble........." trademarked introduction.  Check out the thrash element in Evelyn.  I'm telling you, this album is all over the place, but not in a bad way.  The way they put it all together flows incredibly well.

 

The album was an import for a while (which is how I bought it), but now you can get it on Amazon for about 13 bucks.  As far as the album art goes, I kind of like it.  By the way, I put all of the songs I like best in italics, which happens to be the first 9 tracks.

 

My Favorite Song: Fallen

 

Most Likely To Skip: Magic Zone

 

***Click the banner at the top to listen to the album***

[Niels (Mod)]

I think it's VERY cool, that you like this album, both because of their nationality and because of, that it was little old me, that apparently introduced you to the band. I've got a couple of friends, who LOVES this band, and have seen them in concert many times. Me, on the other hand.......well, I don't dislike it, but I'll guess, you'll like this better than me, RJhog. I'll have to say, that the 5 songs, I had in NMC "way back then", are absolutely the best ones on the album. The rest are not really good imo. This is the only Vollbeat-album I own, and I've been told, that it's NOT their strongest release. Hmmm, maybe it's because I don't really like Elvis or Johnny Cash. By the way, I THINK they tour the US at the moment.

[Scott]

There was something catchy about this band in the NMC that made me go back and listen to them.  At the time, there was an earlier release availble in ny subscription serfice that I coudl listen to full length albums, and their older stuff was not as good as this.  I think that contradicts information tnat Niels got from someone else, but I wanted to offer that up as an opinion.

 

For this effort I wont contradict Niels again, because I have to fully agree that the best tracks on it were the ones posted on the NMC, the rest are very average.  I found myself not getting into the music so it fell into the background music categoiry for me.