Friday, June 09, 2006

261. Echobrain / Echobrain. 2002. 0/5.

Oh. My. God.
Where do I start with this piece of shite?

Jason Newsted created a major stir in music circles when he quit Metallica back in 2000, essentially so that he could find an outlet for his own creative juices, which he was apparently being denied in Metallica. At the time, there was a groundswell of support for him,that he should be allowed to create his own music aside from his duties in Metallica where, let's face it, he barely got a look in when it came to writing and creating the music. At the time, there was also the appearance that the once-great Metallica was self-destructing. This band, and album, was Jason's first port of call once the dust had settled on his severance from Metallica.

It is a stink-fest.

Seriously – if this is what is the result of Jason's creative juices, he really should have stayed with Metallica and kept getting paid a billion dollars to play their hits, because this is vile. It is boring. It is unoriginal. It is liking chewing on cow manure while bathing in diarrhea. It is almost impossible to believe that Jason could believe that this is a good thing. I know it is a band effort, but these guys were always going to have the weight of expectation upon them given the circumstances of their formation. They failed.
It was torture making myself listen to this album again in order to write this review. I shouldn't have bothered. I knew what I was going to say. But I promised myself I was going to do this properly, and that meant ensuring that what I initially felt about this album was still the case. It is.

If you ever watch Metallica's "Some Kind Of Monster" documentary, you will see when Lars, Kirk and Bob go to see Echobrain live. At the end Lars utters his famous quote, “Metallica are the past, Jason is the future!” Despite Metallica not having done much for me over the past decade or so, I still laugh at this comment.

This is one of the greatest disservices to music ever recorded. I refuse to ever listen to it again.

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