Mustasch - Sounds Like Hell, Looks Like Heaven

Mustasch is hard rock/metal band from Sweden that’s enjoying much recognition within Scandinavia but it isn’t so known in the rest of the European countries. They were formed back in 1998 and since then, they have released 6 studio albums… including “Sounds Like Hell, Looks Like Heaven” which is the band’s latest work.

 

I think that this is the heaviest album of the guys to date based on metal music with riffs, powerful rhythm section and melodic aggressiveness clearly influenced by Metallica, Megadeth, Scorpions, Glenn Danzing, Rammstein etc. They do have some more modern elements as well… but they obviously cannot bypass their idols when they’re copying them widely. In another dimension “Cold Heart Mother Son” would have been Megadeth’s “Symphony of Destruction”… “Dead Again” Metallica’s “Sad But True”… and “Morning Star” a mix of some Scorpions riffs… but in this time they are just some rip-offs… for no reason. I like a band when it’s influenced by the best but I hate listening to cheap copy-paste themes that some other bands wrote decades ago. We have all been influenced by those songs… but those who try to copy them… act witlessly.

 

The album did contain some quite enjoyable songs like: “Speed Metal” (no connections with the specific metal genre), “The Challenger”, “It’s Never Too Late” (which is the best tune here), “Your Father Must Be Proud” (what a nice title for a song huh!), “Destroyed By Destruction” (another hilarious song title) and it has a great & heavy production… as it was mixed by Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein, Paradise Lost, Within Temptation) and produced by Ralf Gyllenhammar (the vocalist/guitarist of the band).

 

The album has already become gold in Sweden… so it is successful by any means… it has sold thousands of copies and the fans seem to love it. But is that all what’s left in our beloved music? I mean too many average or “OK” albums have sold millions of copies and gained fame & fortune overnight in the last decade… still their music will not be in the Hall of Fame among the great metal/rock albums of all time. Why do people choose to support artists/bands that have no originality and try to become famous just by copying some big bands? In a perfect music world bands like Evanescence, Slipknot, Nickelback among others would have called it quits long before their time ‘cuz they just can’t write a damn song… and they can barely play their instruments. But in this damn hell-like world… those bands are leading the blinds. Concisely, “Sounds Like Hell, Looks Like Heaven” is a listenable hard rock/metal album but it lacks originality and inspiration…