CD review VOLBEAT ‘Rewind, Replay, Rebound’

(6/10) ‘Rewind, Replay, Rebound’ is Volbeat’s seventh studio album and if you expected the longplayer to be a turning point with the band moving away from the more trivial Rock music I must disappoint you. The new record is a continuation of a way that comes from innovative Metal and leads to mainstream Rock. After having released three great albums it was ‘Beyond Hell / Above Heaven’ that manifests a shift towards a more commercial oriented sound. ‘Fallen’ is exemplary for the shift and the success of this single release gave direction for where Michael Poulsen wants to go to with his band.

In this sense ‘Rewind, Replay, Rebound’ is a logical next step, an album that will find a lot of friends among the group of fans that like the latest releases. However, the days of great Thrash’n’Metal’n’Elvis’n’Roll, with anthems like ‘Pool of Booze, Booze, Booza’, are gone and there isn’t a next ‘Soulweeper’ on the album either.

‘Last Day Under the Sun’ is the starting point into the album, a song with chords that are very much inspired by Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’. Pop Rock sound like this. The partly heavier guitars of ‘Pelvis on Fire’, one of the little highlights, gives the idea of the opener being an exception, a thought that’s proven wrong with the uninspired ‘Rewind the Exit’.

‘Die to Live’ belongs with a solid Rock’n’roll spirit to the more positive tunes on ‘Rewind, Replay, Rebound’, but there are too many average songs surrounding the limited highlights. ‘When We Were Kids’ and ‘Cloud 9’ are not much more than standard Rock songs, built with a cookie-cutter approach and the fact of Gary Holt adding some guitar riffs to ‘Cheapside Sloggers’ doesn’t lead to the good old Volbeat power either.

Volbeat is a shadow of their former self. Edges are replaced by softeners and creativity turns into standard. ‘Rewind, Replay, Rebound’, the first real disappointment this year.

(6/10)

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