Deadlock Wolves

Wow, if it wasn't for the opportunity to hear this latest offering by Germany's Deadock I may have gone about my entire life without knowing the answer to one of the world's most difficult questions: just what exactly happens if you fused the brutality of death metal with Michelle Branch Let me break it down for you. Lifeforce's Deadlock plays a slightly rehashed, but still competent brand of melodic death metal with a slight hardcore lean in the vein of Heaven Shall Burn. It is a little candy coated-the production is squeaky clean and the use of symphonic elements is a bit gratuitous at times, but overall, it isn't all bad. But then Deadlock had a brilliant plan. "Instead of merely having clean singing for melodic choruses," they thought, "let's one up everyone else and just stick an attractive girl in the band!" Of course this is all paraphrased, but I know a guy who knows a guy who knows one more guy and I'm pretty sure this is how it all went down. The first real track, "We Shall All Bleed," is quite blunt about letting the listener know exactly what type of pop/metal confusion they're getting into. Now, the experienced listener in me knew that as soon as the first vocals showed up, a hilarious guttural mumble of "Come on motherfuckers," I should have ran the other way and never look back. But no, I stuck it out, and for what So I get to hear vocalist Sabine Weniger belt out female power-pop vocals over cheesy melodic metal choruses Granted, Kelly Clarkson or Ally and A.J. aren't exactly about to sing lines like "But we shall all bleed together eternally / for this is the hell we all created," but it's really not that different. And then, Deadlock goes and does the unthinkable in the middle of "We Shall All Bleed" and delves into a minute and a half long shredding solo that is actually pretty damn good. That solo is completely representative of the main problem with Wolves: despite the awkward female vocals and trendy melodeath sound, there are just enough interesting metal moments to string the listener along as one hopes that they'll cut the bullshit and play up to the brief moments of potential that they infrequently display. But in the end you'll be left with 47 minutes of your life that you'll never get back and a slight sense of paranoia, hoping that no one heard you jamming along to Weniger's delivery of lyrics like "Sun goes down again / while I sit here and feel the tears running down my cheeks." Yet it would be unfair to completely blame Weniger for the downfalls of Wolves. The only track without her presence, "Losers' Ballet," fails for different reasons, mostly due to the overindulgence on unnecessary operatic touches and film score-style epicness. And then there's "End Begins," a song that suddenly breaks into about thirty seconds of laughable Euro-techno. I have no idea how something like that could even make it out of studio, but alas, it did and is wide open for ridicule. The mistakes come full circle with the disc's concluding track, "To Where the Skies are Blue," Weniger's solo piano number. You could honestly hand that track to your local Top 40 radio station and tell them it was Vanessa Carlton's latest single and they would buy it. I might actually try it. I'll keep you updated. Bottom Line: There's a few solid melodic death metal moments that keep Wolves from falling into complete worthlessness, but Sabine Weniger's cheesy vocals and a number of other blatant missteps make this disc laughable at best. The only thing more embarrassing than this album is the realization that I just wrote a review referencing Michelle Branch, Kelly Clarkson, Ally and A.J. and Vanessa Carlton. Shoot me now.