Landmine Spring - Are We The Culprits?

One of the hardest things to do when reviewing an album is just to take it for what it’s supposed to be. Whether it is a genre you love, or a genre you hate, an artist you worship, or an artist you have hated in the past, you have to be unbiased and take the work for what it is, out of the context of your personal taste. So along comes Landmine Spring’s Are We The Culprits?, a headbanger’s ball / death metal album from an English band I have never heard of… I try to keep an open mind and listen for something maybe I had missed before, and sure enough I find one or two things that catch my ear, but for the most part all I hear the standard thrashing guitars and growling vocals of metal. It’s not that the album is horrible, or makes me want to through stereo equipment out the window, it’s just that it isn’t my cup of tea, and that is hard to get over. Now there is a time and a place for growling in rock music. One has to look no further than say a Todd Lewis, of the Toadies, to see that. But most of the tracks on this album bleed together into one category; the lead singer growls non-stop, only pausing to slightly sing a chorus every now and then. It is the stamp of metal these days, but also quite an abrasive technique that makes the album hard to want to play again. After four or five listens and giving it a shot, I determine this disc just isn’t for me. I have to take into account the genre, and so maybe in that context it isn’t horrible, but great albums cross genres and tastes, and this just isn’t one of them. [www.landmine-spring.co.uk]