Primal Rock Rebellion - Awoken Broken

That is a really bizarre collaboration between two totally different music genres, schools and philosophy. Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden joined forces with Mikee W Goodman, the vocalist from SikTh. Adrian except for the guitars here, he is playing the bass and does the backing vocals, while the drums were recorded by Dan “Loord” Foord, who was also in SikTh. Other guest musicians are: Tarin Kerry who does some additional backing vocals in three songs and Abi Fry (British Sea Power, Bat For Lashes, The Flowers of Hell, Sad Season and Euchrid Eucrow) who plays the viola in the album.

 

“Awoken Broken” is quite different from what you should have expected it to be. Modern metal, groovy guitars, hard rock & alternative rhythms, melodic parts, weird vocals… are all blended up here… and the result…will finally leave you with mixed emotions. Adrian feels free from Iron Maiden and he does play in a way that no Maiden fan would have ever imagined. Conversely, Mikee has a unique voice… not easy to get used to … but I must admit that he does sing better here than in his band… he can actually sing… although he is not your ordinary singer by any means.

 

The album begins very dynamically with “No Friendly Neighbour”, which is a fine song… but regrettably the whole album does not have the consistency it needs to, so as to keep your attention till the end. It misses something to make it more exciting. Surely, you must listen to this work quite a few times if you wanna become familiar with the dissimilar music material it contains. Moreover, the album has a big sound, modern and very vigorous as it was produced by Adrian and Mikee, and mixed by Simon Hanhart, whose previous credits include everyone from Tin Machine to Saxon.

 

Well, leaving the Maiden fans out of the game … since they should stay away from this band… we’re left with the fans of SikTh, the youngers and the more modern metal, alternative rock, stoner ones… that will find “Awoken Broken” somewhat interesting.