Soundcrawler
The Dead-End Host

I think that the cover of this album sets up an interesting scenario in my mind, with a desert planet, an old battlefield and the unrelenting drought terrorising a hero looking for a way to return home long after the battle is over. The scattered groups that are all trying to survive will always be a problem and where a way home may actually already have been destroyed for all time. This is how it looks but the title The Dead-End Host is not very good even though it kind of points towards my idea of a story built from the cover, the name is just not that interesting.

Soundcrawler is a French quintet and this is their second album following about three years after the debut called The Sandcrawler which was released in 2012, I think that album had a much better title and the would be more fitting looking at the cover of this album as well. But enough about the cover already, the album itself is far less exciting with music that has been borrowed mainly from the nineties where bands like Alice in Chains or Soundgarden are namedropped a lot in the reviews around the web and I think that is how it sounds. A bit nineties, a bit cheap, a bit simplistic, kind of dated in many regards – a bit old. The workmanship is pretty good and the band seems handy enough at what they do, it is the songs and the production that feels a bit old, like something from another time.

Anonymous is the best way to describe this album in my opinion, the songs are all similar and the 42 minute playing time offers nothing that stand out, nothing that makes you go “wow, this is cool” and that is a problem for any album that want to be noticed in today’s musical climate. It is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination but when you introduce yourself to at least half a dozen albums each day, something more is required for you to take notice. This is one of those albums that you listen to and think about how you are to work out the next couple of reviews, plan the best strategy for the next couple of articles and reviews on the website and before you know it the album ends and you have not really heard any of it. It has been played a dozen times now and the only thing I really know about it is that it sounds like something from the nineties and that it isn’t terribly bad. Anonymous, that is what it is – pretty much nothing of consequence.

I was looking at some other reviews around the web and even those always praising everything was giving like 6 of 10 to this album which in their mind is like us giving 2 or 3 of 7 and I don’t think I found a single review that was overly positive and most was regarding the album as too cautious, too anonymous. So, I think that it is back to the drawing board for Soundcrawler and while there they really need to find something that is theirs and then find a way to express that through their music – only then it will be possible for them to make something that is interesting. The Dead-End Host is really a dead-end album.

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