90%
Goddass—My Beautiful Sin (2008)
Details
Track 1 produced by Al Salerno and Francesco Saglietti. Recorded and mixed by Al Salerno, T Salerno and Francesco Saglietti at Brostudios (Turin, Italy). Tracks 2, 4, 6, 9 produced by Al Salerno and mixed by Matt Hyde at Blue Rooms Studios (London, UK). Guitars, bass and vocals recorded at Brostudios (Turin, Italy) by T Salerno and Al Salerno. Drums recorded at Fusix Studio (Turin, Italy) by Andrea Fusini. Tracks 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 produced by Al Salerno and Andrea Fusini. Recorded and mixed by Andrea Fusini at Fusix Studio (Turin, Italy).
Website
Band
- Al Salerno—Vocals and guitars
- Nak—Guitar
- Vendra—Bass
- T Salerno—Drums
Tracks
- Prelude
- Hide in pieces
- All I die for
- The draw and the rest
- Last day
- Become my heart
- Bleeding a scream
- Never and over
- You (hate)
- I’m your hell
- My beautiful sin
Review
What I tend to do with this project is stack up a few months worth of albums in a Trello board, and then process them week by week. I’ve found that it takes the Element of Faff™ out of the whole exercise. Here’s my Trello board for this blog as it currently stands:
My list dried up a couple of weeks ago. So when I stocked it up again, I purposefully put this album at the top. Not because I’d listened to the album before, or that I knew anything about them, but simply because I liked the cover. It’s a tactic that has worked for me before (Lamb of God and Architects to name two). Thankfully, it’s a tactic that worked again: I really like this album. Until the new Trypticon album dropped through my letterbox I’ve played this album almost non-stop in my car.
Before I discuss the music, I did a little research. Goddass are three Italians, an English singer, and an odd name (did they want ‘Goddess’ but it was already taken? I’m curious. They also appear not to be metal enough to be featured in Encyclopaedia Metallum. I don’t care; I like ’em.
Musically their brand of melodic, heavy music reminds me of a fusion of Stone Sour, God Forbid, a male-fronted Evanescence, and a handful of nu-metal/emo/post-hardcore acts whose songs I would recognise on the radio but I couldn’t tell you who they were.
The album opens with a pretty acoustic guitar and strings track before it clicks over to the more energetic track two, ‘Hide in pieces’, like a butterfly being hit by a juggernaut. The guitars are tight, drums double-kick-tastic, the lyrics delivered in a combination of melodic rock singing with a smattering or two of growling death-metal style vocals. But it works.
The songs are varied throughout the album: it doesn’t all sound like the same song reworked again and again, which is great. I like how they’ve managed to combine melody with heaviness. This is a very listenable and fun album.
My stand out track is probably ‘Become my heart’ (track 6) because of all the fun shouty parts. It reminds me of something but for the life of me I can’t put my finger on it. If you know, leave me a comment.
Conclusion
A rushed and late review for a really fun album that I’ve had massive enjoyment from this week. This is definitely a keeper for me. Sinful as it may be, it is rather beautiful. Just like the packaging.
Review score: 90%