Threat Signal – Threat Signal (2011)

Two years have passed after releasing the excellent “Vigilance” and one of Canada’s finest returns with their new release “Threat Signal”. We are extremely divided when it comes to this release since the music is excellent, but some of the vocals are just WTF. So we kind of liked the album in the sense that Threat Signal has very nicely matured musically and all songs are just excellent, but when the Linkin Park style singing kicks in we just want to jump of the balcony.

Opening very powerfully with “Uncensored”, the band delivers well crafted guitar riffs and tight drums, courtesy of two of the band’s newest members: Chris Feener and Alex Rudinger respectively. However, the band things really start showing when the clean ‘modern Metal/nu Metal’ clean vocals make their appearance. There are of course harsh screams to kind of balance things out but it is not enough to eliminate the bad taste. We can also listen to an edge of Gojira and Fear Factory in the sound of this release, and when paired with excellent solos, the music alone is truly entertaining and very good.

“Comatose”, “New World Order” and “Trust in None” follow pretty much the same path of the opening track, nicely combining excellent drumming with a pounding bass guitar line and amazing guitar work (especially the solos), however the clean vocals completely killed the mood for us. “Face The Day” and “Disposition” gave us that Meshuggah hint here and there, but the ending was just terrible. Pretty much we will stop here and just say that the rest of the songs keep following the same pattern of excellent music and plain annoying vocals (unless you like Linkin Park).

Musically, “Threat Signal” is excellent; the guitars are very well crafted and nicely blend into the music. The drumming is actually better than before, and the bass guitar line is pretty well balanced in the mixture. Production wise, this album is one of the best sounding releases of 2011 and it is a shame that we can’t fully enjoy it.

If you are looking for an excellent release that was ruined by bad vocals, or you love Linkin Park and like something heavier and more Metal on top, run to your closest store and get this album (or pre-order it). However, if you want pure and un-adulterated Technical Melodic Metal with decent vocals, you might choose to skip this one. Threat Signal is by no means a musically bad album, but there are just some things we can’t get over after hating on Linkin Park for years.

Release: October 11th, 2011

Country: Canada