DANGEROUS BREED – REPROGRAM YOURSELF ALBUM REVIEW
For those who thought an 80s revival was limited to skinny indie kids recreating the sounds of Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division, of Lady Gaga taking Madonna’s wardrobe experiments to their most illogical conclusion, or of a Conservative Prime Minister overseeing a slew of cuts in public spending against a slew of strikes, think again.
The 80s revival is bigger and more encompassing than you thought.
Enter Dangerous Breed, a heavy metal act who take their cue from the Iron Maiden school of hard rock. Their album “Reprogram Yourself” is text book metal. Theirs is a sound riddled with loud as you like chugging riffs and the screechiest of screechy high speed guitars. Add to that Carl Casagrande and his impressively huge lungs, which he uses to deliver the most powerful of vocals, and you have a band whose epic proportions rival the grandeur of most cathedrals.
The heavy rock 80s sounds are there for all to hear. The Iron Maiden reference points would, arguably, be enough. But they don’t stop there. You’ll also find gestures towards “Momentary Lapse of Reason” era Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney’s Bond theme “Live and Let Die” (as famously covered by Guns n’ Roses) on “Ego”.
Elsewhere, the non-metal influences take in a slightly broader time frame. “Lost in a World” could easily be a metallic medley of Led Zep’s “Immigrant Song” and the instrumental from The Eagles’ “Hotel California”. There’s also a something of an early Manic Street Preachers sound to be found throughout the record.
Heavy metal has always been the music of choice for those who prefer their songs to come with an extra slice of Sturm und Drang (or storm and stress). Anger, rage and distress are key ingredients of any heavy metal song (see “Train Wreck” by Kent’s excellent Shatterpoint for further details).
At its heart, Dangerous Breed’s album is a self help text for people who prefer their wisdom to come with thrashing chords and fewer fluffy clouds and trite bon mots of calm.
“Reprogram Yourself” takes an angry swipe against the world in which Dangerous Breed find themselves. “We’ve had enough/our limit has been reached” runs a line from “Lost in a World”, while “Ego” contains the observation that “the word ‘I’ rules the world/a misperception of the whole.”
And the response? Dangerous Breed aren’t happy to settle with the fact that life can be a bit rubbish for some vague, undetermined reason (one of many, many reason why this band are unlikely to be compared with Coldplay any time soon).
Instead, they try to inspire some sense of revolution against mediocrity.
It emerges in the album’s title track: “I believe in life’s magic/even when there’s no hope for it”. Elsewhere, the album opener, “Control” even goes as far as to suggest a cure for the world’s ills might be “doing good for everybody”.
You might not expect messages of peace, love and understanding to come from one of the loudest bands on the planet. So you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Throughout the album other torments are explored. “Leave it all Behind”is about the hell of addiction while” The Dark and Cold” is a simple prayer seeking some kind of reprieve from a life of loss and sadness.
For anyone who thought hard rock and heavy metal was just an excuse to turn the volume up to 11 and head bang like it was 1986, Dangerous Breed are here to show there is a great deal more to the genre. In “Reprogram Yourself” you’ll find intelligence and eloquence – even a sense of poetry.
Oh, and you’ll get to do a bit of head banging too. Win-win.
Find out more about Dangerous Breed on www.myspace.com/rockatdangerousbreed
“Reprogram Yourself” was recorded by the legendary Chris Tsangarides at Ecology Room Studios in Kent.
