SKITZO „Hellavator Musick”

What can I say? I'm a little confused on this one. What the hell has the first song in common with the rest? It's some kind of Nirvana meets M. Manson riff in the verse (and it sucks!) with some circus-System-of –a-Down-light-kind-of-vocal-quality (just my weird sense of humor!) but the chorus is OK and fairly original… that's the negative stuff.

The rest of the songs are great and the guys show a good craftsmanship here (although the bass is a little out of tune every now and then). Song #2 is some kind of Slayer pastische with a vocal quality somewhere beetween thrash and speed-metal. These guys certainly focus on the past of metal rather than on whats ”nu”, so to speak, and it sure isn't bad at all. While song #2 could be seen as a Slayer rip-off the rest of the material is a fairly original mix of Slayer (the heavier part of the riffage) meets other legends such as Judas Priest (the lighter speedy riffage), Iron Maiden (especially the jumpy bass-lines and some melodic guitar solo passages), Helloween (mostly the vocals) and even a tinge of olde-thyme heroes Black Sabbath could be found.

I also sense that one should not take the lyrics too seriuosly cos they are somewhat cliché. The question, whether these guys are serious about their image or not, should be answered by the title of this MCD.

I don't like to get influenced by bios, other reviews, interviews, publicity etc. (I always read them after my review has been written) but now that I've read some stuff about Skitzo my feelings about them are a little mixed. First of all 21 years in the business and 15 albums is something that craves for respect. On the other hand you've got their image (that I was a little sceptic about without knowing anything about them). I think you should know that the vocalist puked all over his girlfriend on the ”Jerry Springer Show” last year and she seemed to like it… well things like that don't impress me much. Some people certainly do anything to get their share of publicity (they got it in ”Spin” etc.) and that fills me with disrespect. My advice is: GROW UP!

All in all a good 6 tracker (or 7 tracker – yea there's one filler track!). I give 'em 7 out of 10 points, due to the fact that track #1 makes the whole picture of this CD a little ”skitzo”.