- Tue, 2010-10-26 16:56
Supergroups can be dodgy territory. Sometimes it’s the egos that get in the way. Hello Velvet Revolver. On other occasions the various members just don’t click with each other as they did in their day jobs. Will Audioslave please stand up.
However, there are rare instances when 2 + 2 does turn out to make an unbelievably exciting 5. Take a bow A Perfect Circle, Them Crooked Vultures and now The Damned Things.
An amalgam of Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano, and Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley, The Damned Things import elements of each of those band’s trademark sounds and mix them together to make a heady new mix of big melodies, hard rocking riffs and heavy metal intensity. The lead song on their Myspace - We’ve Got A Situation Here - manages to combine a huge range of styles in its five minutes without once sounding laboured or incongruous. There’s a harmonised guitar intro a la ‘80s metal, a punky chorus, furious Load-era Metallica verses, a shredding guitar solo and hardcore-tinged breakdown and a furious outro to top things off. In short, it’s ruddy spectacular.
This is what the band had to say about it all:
"We started out with no expectations," says Trohman. "We never intended for this to be a side project. It just happened."
"We're trying not to over-think it," chimes in Ian. "Nobody's arm is being twisted to be here. We're just doing it as we go along, and this is the natural progression. […] We're able to do things exactly how we want to do them by keeping it simple and comfortable for everyone."
"The opportunity came at the right time," says Buckley. "I had a desire to do something a little different. To be able to come together to challenge, not only us, but also the fans of our bands, seemed too exciting to pass up. This allowed me to take some elements from Every Time I Die and expound on them. I've just sort of reversed the ratio of singing to screaming. But anyone who'd been listening to our last few albums had realized that this was a vocal style that I was interested in exploring."
The band's debut album, Ironiclast, will be released December 14th 2010.
