Soul Survivor

No! No more simple and cowardly approaches to any of classic rock samples! No compromising on showing blues roots! No pretentious and unfitting buildup! Gorefest just got together, rolled out the most pure, on the level that seemed just impossible, death 'n' roll, and just spat in the face of anyone who is against it. "Soul Survivor" certainly shocked even the listeners who were favorably inclined to "Erase". No one has ever managed to incorporate structures from ordinary rock music so boldly and with so much class, and at the same time make it sound in such a way that there was no feeling of incoherence of both of the musical vectors. No one did it as flawless as Gorefest did there.

The lyric style of the band have undergone major changes - the thrash-inspired aggression expressed in witty and sharp formulations and their political core have disappeared. Now they have acquired purely poetical, fable-like, inspirational tone, pretty much continuing the themes of such songs from the previous albums as "Low", "Erase" and "Get-A-Life". Musically, however, we can count up to.... zero death riffs. The riffs here are full of blues-rock fluidity and mood, and the lightened guitar distortion gives them a more modern, insistent sound. Oscar Holleman, as a producer, completely understood the musicians' intentions and wrapped the sound in a beautiful, smooth wrapper. The songs here revive old memories of early Judas Priest ("Dog Day"), Aerosmith ("River"), Thin Lizzy ("Forty Shades"), AC/DC ("Blood Is Thick"), Blue Oyster Cult ("Soul Survivor"), The Doors-spirited blues ("Dragon Man"). Keyboards and mellotron of Rene Merkelbach remind of art rock legends like Yes and Genesis. The general pattern of the drum parts, in which there are almost no death beats left, sets a listener to the old hard rock mood. The guitar sound was set up perfectly, maintaining all the clarity necessary for an album of this style, while still having a noticeable heaviness. Jan-Chris de Koeijer's vocals, famous for extremely clear diction and the distinctive sound he gets by protruding his tremendously big lips - as if Jan-Chris himself was created for growling - are like the voice of a wise dragon that is narrating the backstory of another Medieval fantasy franchise. But the most stunning part here is, hands down, Boudewijn Bonebakker's playing. The extremely soulful, virtuoso playing of the curly-haired guitarist will leave good chunk of those he got inspiration from eating dust. Just listen to his solos on "Freedom", "Electric Poet", "Chameleon", and of course the Kenneth Downing style number in the hidden track (which is the solo from the track "Tired Moon" that was on the "Freedom" single). Lots of technical licks, bluesy parts, cool dynamics - it's all simply breathtaking! Frank Harthoorn, who, if I'm not mistaken, had a couple of solos too (like the second one in "Forty Shades"), is fairly good too. Together they create a force to be reckoned with. Bonebakker, the main writer of the band's music, I consider to be the most underrated guitarist in metal music, and I hope guitar geeks would also agree with me, even though they're able to explain it in way more professional fashion. I also really like the simple but aesthetically pleasant artwork and layout - a clear reminiscence of the proto-internet, digitalizing era of the mid-to-late 90s. And I won't even bother pointing out songs in particular - each one is a hit. And Side A - this is 5 absolute masterpieces in a row.

Many point out that the band title "Gorefest" starts to look hilarious on an album with such a light and merry musical material. While for the Russian-speaking metal community the irony is even stronger. The thing is that most Russian metalheads transliterate band's name in a wrong way - Горефест (gow-re-fest). And the [gow-re] bit sounds like горе - which is a word for grief and sadness. The irony is tremendous. This album is the most optimistic and cheerful in all of death metal, or in Gorefest's discography at very least. The positive emotions that I receive from listening to the songs from "Soul Survivor" can be compared to those that actual blues rock bands like ZZ Top, Cream or The Allman Brothers Band ignite in me. It's not just plays and plays, it flows softly and gracefully as it's being played. It's definitely my favorite album in death'n'roll genre, with which only "Swansong" by the Fab Four and "There's Something Rotten... In the State of Denmark" by Illdisposed can somehow compete. For those who really adore blues-rock in particular and 70's rock in general, it should be at least an example of an idle mixture of two different cultures. And as if it's Earth representative in an intergalactical contact, everything here is presented in the best possible way, and all the impressions and conclusions are all dependent just on how open-minded the outside listener is. Death metal fans, if they're actually eager to put aside the mantra "one should be faithful to the genre", of course (let's admit, Mindloss was absolutely generic and if Gorefest would have kept producing this primitive death metal it'd have contributed nothing to the scene, especially compared to what they've achieved in False and all other albums), and try to evaluate this album objectively, may fall in love too. But for me, who loves both genres a lot, nothing really put any obstacles, and I was diving headfirst into "Soul Survivor", coming out of the water as a fresh and happy man, hailing this album and giving it a well-deserved pure 100% mark. Fabulous masterpiece! Have mercy!

When you think about Gorefest, the first thing you think is that it will be a brutal and fast job, especially if you remember their previous works like "Mindloss" or "False", however, this band seems to be in constant evolution, it is then that this album is the evolution of its predecessor "Erase", in which it was already perceived that the band was slowing down the death metal revolutions and heading towards a style more attached to rock and roll, although "Soul Survivor" speaks for itself since the change of logo and the cover art that is showed, it is remarkable that we can not expect to listen to a death metal album as they have been doing before, if not something else. "Clean" in that sense.

This album, as already noted, has a composition more attached to rock and roll, so it is slower and groovy than its predecessors works, although its obvious that every moment of darkness or putrefaction with which Gorefest started has been lost, it is not bad at all, since most bands evolve so as not to fall into the monotony of always doing the same thing, it can be considered that it is an experiment to not replicate the sound of their previous albums and produce "something innovative".

As new elements for the radical change in this album, keyboards are implemented in several songs such as "Forty Shades", "River", "Electric Poet", "Dragon Man", giving a slightly intense atmosphere, which reinforces the guitars melodies, accoustic guitars like “River”, wah pedals like “Forty Shades”, some implementations and variations in the voice like pop effects like “Demon Seed” and whispered vocals like in “Dragon Man”, losing all notion of pure death metal that could exist, turning it into a death n roll album.

But did Gorefest lost their identity as such with this album?

The answer is a resounding no, because although it is not a fast and brutal album like what we were used to, the elements that makes Gorefest unmistakable are always there, because since the "Mindloss" album the composition of their solos were something that they wanted to stand out in their music as it was in songs like "Mental Misery", "Confessions of a Serial Killer", "Horrors in a Retarded Mind", among others. In "Soul Survivor" Boudewijn Bonebakker made sure that the soul of each song were the structured guitar solos, letting the guitar speak by itself, accompanied by simple melodies played by Frank , who gives the thick groove that they have always in the slow parts and musical arrangements.

The brutal voice of Jan Chris, is always present, making it unmistakable and retaking lyrical themes about thought freedom, which is one of the main characteristics of Gorefest since its inception.

In the same way "Ed Warby" technique is present at times in some songs, however it should be noted that there are few moments where his drums are memorable as other albums, the same to the bass guitar, so it becomes more discreet and only to give rhythm, so the essence of the band is still present but now embodied in another genre.

Obviously this evolution influences their sound, since replicating the music or maintaining the line of predecessor albums seems to be something that Gorefest does not like at all, so they are constantly changing, perhaps they wanted to show that beyond what they had already composed, they could also create a well done fusion between rock and roll and death metal.

Like most albums, it also has its shortcomings, and these are mainly that Jan Chris, makes very few variations in his voice naturally, because in pure death metal it does not matter if he only makes a guttural because most of the parts in the voice composition are very heavy and fast, however in this work, some variation should have been recommended.

In the instrumental aspect, the musical structure of almost all the songs is very similar in terms of composition, it is then that if you are not used to this genre, it will probably start to sound the same, so I recommend you pay attention to the solos and read the lyrics.

In conclusion, “Soul Survivor” is a good experimental Gorefest album, in which the band knows how to successfully release the moments of tension in their compositions, as well as showing that they are musicians who can compose a different genre satisfactorily, so if you like this kind of fusion, maybe you will get a good impression of this work.

The most notable songs on the album are "Electric Poet", "Dog Day", "Demon Seed", "Chamaleon" and "Dragon Man", in which you can appreciate all the style of the death n roll genre.

What can be said about this? Gorefest were one of the first Dutch death metal bands. Their line-up with Hoogendoorn (drums) and van Schaik (lead guitar) released two demos and an album All three are classics within the genre.

Now 50% of the line-up had changed by the time the second album was recorded and as a result the sound was slowly changing. Though still a death metal album, 'False' had an entirely new feel to it and broadened their sound a lot. More doom parts and even some influence from Godflesh were the most obvious ones to the listener.

On third album 'Erase' the band lost their death metal vibe. Sounding mechanised and consisting mostly of midpaced and slow groovy metal with low monotone vocals. 13 years ago I gave Erase 25 points on this page and even that is a bit much since only ‘Peace Of Paper’ from that album is worth mentioning.

In 1996 Gorefest changed style again. The mechanised sound was let go and replaced by a kind of Thin Lizzy worshipping slow rock but with downtuned metal guitars and JC's low vocals.

Were they jumpin on the Wolverine Blues bandwagon three years late? Well, Gorefest had a guitarist (Bonebaker) who could play classic rock a lot more convincing than Entomed ever could. BUT... Entomed were the better songwriters and knew better how to keep it metal.

Just play 'Soul Survivor' right after Wolverine Blues and you'll immediatly see what I mean. SoulSurvivor sounds very thin and in all honesty sounds like a band recorded a classic rock album, gave it a lightweight nineties metal production and then had a karaoke session in a bar with some grunting guy jumping the stage. There are not many albums on which the vocals sound so out of place as on this one. This is material which could use or (even need) a good classic rock vocalist to make it work.

'Electric Poet' on paper is a good seventies rock tune. But the band just can't get the right groove to make it work. It is also played way too slow. And the vocals...again...not working... at all. 'Dog Day' is a fun tune, instrumentally, the groove is decent, the pace is right. But the vocals again...no. And a strong chorus is entirely missing.

Titletrack 'Sould Survivor' starts with a riff I'd swear is picked right from a song on Ozzy's 'Bark At The Moon' album! But again because of the vocals sounds like a karaoke session gone horribly wrong.

Now I could go on saying something like this about every song on the album. But I just won't because I've made my point.

Sure, some songs actually work. 'River' is a doomy track with an organ which, for some odd reason, has the same vibe as some parts/songs on their earlier 'False' album. Yes, this song is quite good and works fine with JC grunting. Same goes for the doomy closer 'Dragon Man'. What can be said then is that this weird mixture of seventies rock and a (former) death metal bands works on their slowest material. But an album full of those would not have worked either because they lack the emotional depth Paradise Lost still had in 1996.

Once a band evolving their sound, Gorefest had now become a ship adrift. Identity crises galore. But slightly better than Erase which only had one good song.