Zero Down
No Limit to the Evil
Minotauro Records
2014
Zero Down are some traditional metallers with slight thrash/punk aspirations, from Seattle. They have in their twelve year existence released four albums, this one inclusive sometimes independently and sometimes through labels. Having toured with a bunch of national acts and all that time to hone their craft, they do come off as polished, with Lenny Burnett and Matt Fox, supplying a decent amount of groovy guitar riffs that sound original and authoritative, but sometimes are just ripped off, from “all over the place” basically but nicely mashed up to work together... Mark Hawkinson, the band’s singer, is not exactly, the best singer you’ve ever heard, but he has grit, he goes for some pretty high screams convincingly enough and with sufficient power and doesn’t lack in conviction or enthusiasm. It’s just that on certain songs he sounds better than in others and here’s the band’s and album’s main problem, they are not very consistent…
While songs like the rousing opener “Return of the Godz”, the more “cyclical” but quite melodic – title track, or the silly-hilly-billy “SteveMcQueen” others, like the marching “Leche Di Tigre”(Milk of the Tiger)” the stomping “Two Ton Hammer” and a bunch of others barely make it past being OK! So, with only a bunch of really good songs and a few, decent ones and the rest of them being very plain, the album overall comes off as very mixed in terms of quality. Without changing their style, which overall is “nice”, (there’s nothing wrong with being old school) they still need some refinement. Just going for the throat every-time, doesn’t necessarily work, all the time… although these Ed Repka covers seem to do the trick. 60% of the time they work every time in getting your attention! Ha!
While songs like the rousing opener “Return of the Godz”, the more “cyclical” but quite melodic – title track, or the silly-hilly-billy “SteveMcQueen” others, like the marching “Leche Di Tigre”(Milk of the Tiger)” the stomping “Two Ton Hammer” and a bunch of others barely make it past being OK! So, with only a bunch of really good songs and a few, decent ones and the rest of them being very plain, the album overall comes off as very mixed in terms of quality. Without changing their style, which overall is “nice”, (there’s nothing wrong with being old school) they still need some refinement. Just going for the throat every-time, doesn’t necessarily work, all the time… although these Ed Repka covers seem to do the trick. 60% of the time they work every time in getting your attention! Ha!