Children will die from hearing this

According to the back cover of their new album Attack, Dead Child has created “a metal Frankenstein made from the strongest limbs of all heavy music ... (that) has been turbo-charged with lightning from the sky of a doomed world.” Clearly, any band with such an amazing profile has to be stupendous, right? Well, not quite.

Attack is nothing more than your typical run-of-the-mill metal album, which means it’s downright awful. There are tons of chugging guitar solos that go on far too long, shrieking vocals and handfuls of lyrics about doom and gloom. Nothing on the album allows it to stand out at all. By the midpoint of Attack, it’s hard to determine where one track ends and another begins.

It’s not that the members are bad at what they do; it’s just that what they do isn’t very good.

The opening track, “Sweet Chariot” might be the best on the album, but probably only because it’s short and the boredom hasn’t kicked in just yet. The track features predictable guitar work, but it’s the lyrics that really put the song over the top (read: by making the listener laugh very hard). If lines likes “Can’t you hear the horses running? / Just say my name and you’ll hear me coming / I’m coming around so give me all I need / Death, fire, speed” don’t get you jacked to watch your creepy uncle’s old VHS tapes of “Headbangers Ball” episodes, nothing ever will.

Even more painful, Dead Child decides it’d be best if they let a couple tracks move past the seven minute mark. And while “The Coldest Hands” and “Black Halo Rider” are glorious song titles, the tracks themselves just can’t meet the expectations. Both see the band trying to create some different sounds within the song, but it all sounds the same.

Aside from their amazing song titles – “Rattlesnake Chalice” and “Wasp Riot” are a few other classics – Dead Child doesn’t offer anything new to metal. Anyone with ears that doesn’t still wear their Anthrax concert T-shirt from 1986 should probably avoid this.