Ethnolution A.D.

These guys were such a fun little band on their first album. Savage Land had pretty much everything I like in Power Metal; originality, tight songwriting and musicianship, some heaviness, an abundance of cool riffs, and catchy, anthemic choruses. But that's all out the window on Ethnolution A.D., which is admittedly not an inherently bad album. We can't fault a band for following their natural instinct to progress further. A band is not merely an outlet that exists to please a body of hungry, irritable fans, but rather a living, breathing entity that expresses itself through music and words, and thus it is inevitable that they will change their sound, as Mob Rules have done. That's not the problem.

No, the problem with this album is that it just isn't a great attempt at "progression." Mob Rules are stretching their creative legs here, and you can tell they put a lot of work into Ethnolution A.D., but the music here is lacking. It's very keyboard-oriented, mature, dramatic music with choirs and time changes and the whole nine yards, with polished production and solid performances from everyone on board, but it's lacking. Mob Rules are trying far too hard to create some sort of genre-defining masterwork, and they're setting their sights higher than that of the material they can actually put out. They're a good band, yes, but not an amazing one, and part of good songwriting is knowing your limitations, which Mob Rules clearly don't. You can't build a skyscraper with 2x4 planks and hammers and nails.

The band even sounds hesitant here a lot of the time; restrained and held back, as if they aren't sure where they're going next. As if they feel like they're messing with things they don't understand, afraid of getting something wrong. Klaus Dirks' voice is better than ever here, but he doesn't really put everything he has into his performance; anyone can tell. The instrumentation is sparkling with prowess, but it doesn't invigorate or excite, merely serving as sort of a "wow" factor for a few bemused nods of impression. There are plenty of good moments here, such as the first song "Unholy War," which is as good of a song as any Mob Rules ever wrote, except you'd be expecting it to follow with some top-notch Metal mastery as on the debut. But that never happens, and all we get after that is a lot of pomped up, watered down slush. The chorus to "The Last Farewell" is pretty cool, as is the one to "Fuel to the Fire," but the music doesn't hold up. The last song, "Better Morning," is a very well done ballad, and it's honestly a step above the rest of the drivel on here. Everything else here ranges from unmemorable to more unmemorable, and will be forgotten accordingly.

Mob Rules are not a good enough band to progress from their more primitive roots in Savage Land, and while this new album is listenable, it is not remarkable in any sense of the word, and fans of any sort of metal with actual firepower to it can safely avoid this. Not bad, but bland and will not leave much of an impact on you. Utterly unmemorable.

Originally written for http://www.metalcrypt.com

If the title of Mob Rules’ 5th and fairly uneven release implies nothing else, it warns the faithful adherent that the band has just embarked on some stylistic developments. When looking back at their older material, the band was functioning in a retrospective sense stylistically, although they approached an already established style with a fresh outlook. It was a throwback to the style originally pioneered by the likes of Iron Maiden and Dio, and that was where its charm was. In 1999 everyone was trying to break the speed of sound, so when a grassroots effort to recapture the spirit of early 80s came about, it was a needed breath of fresh air.

Since their first studio offering, Mob Rules has been on a rather quick evolutionary track, gradually increasing the level of keyboard presence and also increasing the emphasis upon the drums, thus radically changing the atmospheric elements of their music. Those who say that when you listen to “Savageland” and then compare it to this one are essentially correct in that this album is about as far removed stylistically from that one as it gets, much as was the case between Maiden’s “Somewhere In Time” and “Killers”. The fact that a band decides to make some changes does not alone necessitate a negative outcome, nor does the fact that a band does not wish to evolve too quickly mean that they wrote the same album over and over.

“Ethnoluthion A.D.” shares a lot in common with “Hollowed be thy Name” in terms of sound dimensions and production, though it tends a bit more towards “Among the Gods” in its songwriting. It tends towards being mid-tempo, although we have some tracks on here that actually cook quite a bit faster than much of the faster stuff found on “Temple of Two Suns”. The character of the lead guitar is sort of an outlier, as newcomer Sven Lüdke has something of an Adrian Smith meets Dave Gilmour approach, very different from the harmonic happy though reserved approach of Oliver Fuhlhage. The keyboard section, in its typical exponential growth since the band’s assembling, has grown so massive sounding that one might accuse these guys of trying to copy the sound from Metallica’s “S&M”.

All of the right elements are in place for a pretty solid album, but what ends up coming out is something of a mixed bag. Things start off with a rather massive epic composition in 6 parts, and nearly all of the band’s good ideas ended up in it. There’s a haunting atmospheric intro that hails back to the band’s prelude approach on the two previous albums, complete with a male choir chanting prayerful words, which is followed by 5 songs consisting of everything but the kitchen sink being thrown at the listener. There’s the obligatory triumphant anthem with a huge chorus in “Unholy War”, the woeful half-ballad with a lot of atmosphere in “Ashes To Ashes”, the fast paced riff monster straight out of the band’s faster earlier albums (tweaked with some major keyboard and guitar effect additives), and a near match of an epic closer in “The Last Farewell” to that of “Way Of The World”.

After the rather massive first song, which in the spirit of “2112” ended up occupying half of the album, things begin to tapper off pretty rapidly. “Day And A Lifetime” is pretty catchy, dominated by a nice little piano theme that sounds a bit familiar to NIGHTWISH’S “Nemo”, but sort of coasts along and is only moderately good. “River Of Pain” gets the ball rolling in the tempo department and reminds heavily of the band’s fast paced rocker “Meet You In Heaven” off the previous album, though with somewhat of a dance music character coming from the keyboard accompaniment. But from here on in things get pretty convoluted, as several different progressive styles from eastern music influences to piano driven balladry (but not in the catchy sense of “Hold On” from “Temple Of Two Suns”) make their way in. The closer “Better Morning” has a few solid sections, but the last 4 songs on here are largely forgettable.

The final verdict on “Ethnolution A.D.” is that of a wildly ambitious and somewhat confused attempt at straddling their keyboard oriented brand of power metal with a mishmash of ideas from Dream Theater and Communic. If the first 6 songs were alone in an EP release, this would be a solid afterthought to “Among The Gods” that would also segue perfectly into their latest release “Radical Peace” stylistically. It is worth getting, but you might find yourself clicking the stop button when you’re 2/3 of the way through upon repeated listens.

Rewritten and then submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on February 1, 2010.