August 21st, 2011 
Jordan Munson 
Album: Outlawed
Artist: Attila
Genre: Party Metal
Label: Artery Recordings
Over the course of just a couple years, the entire landscape of “metalcore” has completely changed–for better or worse. Bands like Killswitch Engage are nowhere to be found, bands like Attila now at the forefront. It’s been a dramatic shift, and it looks like it’s here to stay (at least for now). Attila refer to themselves on their Facebook page as “party metal” and it’s a pretty accurate description of the band in just about every way.
Before you’ve even listened to the album, you know you’re info a rather vulgar ride when you see the cover art featuring two women making out. The ham-handed level of obvious never really climbs from there. Songs like “Another Round” and “Sex, Drugs, And Violence” do absolutely nothing to provide Outlawed with any depth whatsoever. You’ll find no veiled statements, deep metaphor, or anything of the sort on Outlawed. You will, however, find ten songs with completely obvious messages about partying. The kicker is that this is definitely how the band intended it, as they clearly outlined in “Holler At Ya Boy”: “I Don’t believe any lyrics people seem to write these days. They’re singing just to make that paycheck. Their cause is fake.”
Somewhat shockingly, the musicianship on Outlawed isn’t terrible. While the band does use quite a few dull breakdown sections, they also employ a litany of solid Gothenburg-esque melodic death metal riffs and lots of southern rock/metal riffs into their sound, many of which are undeniably catchy. Even though a majority of the lyrics on Outlawed are pretty terrible, the vocal skills are also quite impressive. They hit just about every type of vocal style going today: br00tal growls, mid-range screams, growl-rapping, raucous yelling, and more. All of these things are packed into a usually interesting sound.
Taking Outlawed with complete seriousness is quite difficult to do when you consider the nature of the band and their music. All the songs are about drinking, smoking, or some other topic directly relating to the party lifestyle–something that’s nearly impossible to take seriously. If that’s your mindset when listening to the album, you’re probably going to thoroughly enjoy it. Otherwise, you’re probably going to get annoyed quite quickly by the silly nature and atrocious lyrics throughout the album. Because the music is so obviously played, there’s not really much more to extrapolate–certainly a case of what you see is what you get.
Party time, excellent!
Overall score: 7/10 (4/10 if you have a hard time not taking music seriously)
Review written by: Jordan Munson (follow him on Twitter)
Check out the album preview on YouTube below:
- REVIEW: The Black Dahlia Murder – Everblack - June 5, 2013
- REVIEW: Dark Tranquillity – Construct - May 23, 2013
- True Widow Release Track List, Artwork For ‘Circumambulation’ - May 22, 2013
Posted in 
Tags: 