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Frolic Through the Park
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| Price: |
8 new or used available from £29.27
Average customer review:
Track Listing
- Third Floor
- Road Mutants
- Why You Do This
- Bored
- Confused
- Guilty Of Innocence
- Open Up
- Shores Of Sin
- Cold Gin
- Mind Rape
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #136647 in Music
- Released on: 1994-08-11
- Number of discs: 1
Customer Reviews
Death Angel's transitional album - still worth having
Death Angel emerged in the late 80's "second wave" of thrash metal (alongside the other Bay Area giants Testament) and unfortuantely never quite achieved the recognition they deserved at the time. Their first album ("The Ultraviolence") was a brutal affair of thrash riffs, myriad tempo changes and rather basic lyrical concerns. Although there were a few standout tracks on it to rival their more illustious contemporaries, it was, at best, fair-to-middling.
However, this, their second album, displayed a growing confidence with their own technical abilities and contains more varied and interesting material. It also contains "Bored", possibly one of the best individual tracks of the era produced by any metal band and the main reason the rating is 4 stars - you really need to own this album for this track alone. It eschewed the (then) traditional acoustic/crash/bang approach to thrash; instead, it is propelled by a hypnotic repeating guitar motif, building slowly but steadily with a distinct menace, but never totally exploding into a faster tempo - instead, it just kind of peters out without going anywhere, in a warped, almost jazz sounding fade out.
On paper, it sounds crap - but it works beautifully. And unlike most other bands at the time, it does it all in under 4 minutes - no ten minute guitar marathon necessary here. "Frolic" came out the same year as Metallica's good-but-interminably-long "And Justice For All" and Anthrax's crap-and-still-interminably-long "State Of Euphoria". "Bored" showed that great metal music didn't necessarily have to play by the rules of the era.
This song - and about half of the others on this album - shows Death Angel approaching the maturity and grasp of songwriting dynamics that would be shown on the follow-up (and much better produced) album "Act 3". "Frolic" is not a perfect album and the production lets it down somewhat, but it is one of those albums that contains just enough excellent tracks to ensure it is worth adding to your collection.
