Thursday, August 2, 2012

The RABID WHOLE: "Refuge"

Rating: RRR
Label: Boonsdale Records 2012
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

The Rabid Whole delivers a nice mixture of rock and electronic elements on their second album release, Refuge. Hailing from the land of Icehockey, Loverboy, Michael J Fox, Helix (believe it or not, but there is a connection), Rush, and Bryan Adams, the band comes along like a fresh breathe of air with their close to danceable beats and industrial-lite sounds.

A male (Andreas Weiss) and female (Chalsey Noelle) vocal showdown and melodies that goes through every single genre from eighties synth rock (Human League) to mainstream today (Linkin Park). Travel back again in time to the sound of Japan (the band) and forward to the more heavy pattern rock of Static-X. Indeed, it's quite the vivid experience and expect the whole she-bang from massive layers of synthesizers to crashing guitars.

You may not enjoy absolutely every single track on 'Refuge' and to be perfectly honest, some of the slow(er) tunes are a lot better than the uptempo ones. For example, "Serenity Falls", should once and for all prove that Chalsey should be singing plenty of more leads as her vocals cuts like a hot knife through butter. Something like "Delusion" is frankly just too close to Linkin Park and in my opinion we've heard it all a million times before in a ten years period of time. The closing title track and "Stargazer" are like if they are promising us there's more sheer quality songs to come in future albums. Refuge was recorded and produced by Karl Schubach (Misery Signals, Solace), mixed by Dave Ogilvie (Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson) and mastered by Noah Mintz (Death From Above), so expect nuthin' but a decent/nice effort.
www.therabidwhole.com

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