Cardiac Arrest
Vortex of Violence

And then it's official - my day is completely ruined. This year will see the release of around a thousand hard rock albums and one of these is 'Vortex Of Violence' by Cardiac Arrest, the fourth album by the Americans and released through Ibex Moon Records. But clearly, this is one of the worst albums that will be released 2012 as well. I'm not going to waste your time nagging about Ibex Moon Records, but a quick search with Halloweds search tool gives us five reviews on albums from the label with a combined average score of 2,2 - a steady fail in our point system (caused by two one-point scores and then one on grade 2, 3 and 4 respectively). This review will not better that score but only make it even more obvious that Ibex Moon records releases the worst albums within hard rock.

*Vortex Of Violence' doesn't only give us one of the worst albums of 2012 seen purely to the music, but also on the production side is this one of the least interesting releases of the year. Well below anything that can be approved as decent. The album takes us 48 1/2 minutes to play through and these minutes gives us eleven of the worst 100 songs of 2012. Not even one of these songs have any form of musical quality and the closest sound I can relate it to would be a breaking metal shelf falling over with lots of big paint cans on it, all smashing to the cement floor with a thundering noise. Not even the cover looks decent, but is full of strange blue creatures that looks pretty similar to the style of a Swedish comic magazine called Python, which is full of comic strips that only immature 6-years old will find fascinating. And somehow that feels quite fitting for this band… it feels like a bunch of pee-pee humor-stuff that perhaps six-years old (mentally that is, physical age might wary) will find cool but I'm pretty sure no one else will.

You might figure that I'm not the keenest fan of Ibex Moon Records after their cavalcade of garbage releases and after an album like 'Vortex Of Violence', who can blame me for criticizing them? Why they are releasing albums like this is a mystery to me that can't be explained with the knowledge base I have at present time. Probably they are doing it because no one else does while enough gullible people are willing to put their weekly allowance on this kind of shit. Still, I have to ask the question - why? Do they really, seriously think people need to have access to something like this? And is there really people out there that needs access to it? We all know that opinions are like organs - everyone have them - but to better understand what makes people willing to invest time and money on albums like this, I would really want anyone that likes this kind of music to get in touch with me and explain it to me: why and how and what is it that's appealing with it? And then maybe I could understand what kind of people that wants it and what it is they want with it because despite it's my job to find what's good in albums released, I can't find anything appealing in this, no matter how hard I try. And that kind of baffles me.

The reason why it baffles me is that people obviously like vocals that sounds like those really deep, stomach burps people can make when they really go for it. And drums that is similar to heavy rain on tin roof. The dominating feature on this album is, however, the bass - and it's the most annoying bass playing I've heard in many, many years. I'm pretty sure they only play one string and they play it the same tempo all the way through the album from start to finish as well, and anyone with some sort of intelligence will understand that a thing like that can't possible work for 48 minutes - especially since nothing else compensate for this performance. None of the songs make any sort of special impression and I just experience how every song on the album feels like the same kind of mucous, phlegmy, slimy kind of sludge that's saved from a complete meltdown only by the somewhat semi-noticeable kind of melody that can be heard throughout the album. However, the fact that it's exactly the same melody throughout the entire album doesn't make the album earn many plus points from this.

I'm not going to say that 'Vortex Of Violence' is the worst album of the year or will be when we summarize the year, but it's easily one of the ten worst albums we will get from 2012 and I can't come up with a single reason for anyone out there to spend money on this album or even a single song from it. But I'm open to suggestions and if you like this album or albums like this, please tell me why and maybe I'll understand why Ibex Moon Records are releasing garbage like this. Write me a mail and tell me who you are and how this music makes your life better and perhaps it's possible to understand why an album like this, that I most of all would like to use as an instrument for torture, shouldn't go straight to my torture chamber.