Corral | ‘Outlaw’

Beer, metal, tits and ass. That’s what Corral are all about, apparently. Well, two out of four ain’t bad, I suppose. Whatever is happening that’s encouraging Irish metallers to make friends with their inner Flintstone lately is hard to discern. Demo production values may be at an all time high (such as this one - another ace Trackmix effort), but the brainwaves have gone into hiding from the artistic department.

Take the front cover: what would you say, ten minutes in MS Paint with a decent font? You need more than that to get noticed, and frankly anyone handing over a few € for a copy deserves more. Gladly, that production certainly does the job when it’s in the drawer, with thick guitars and punchy drums, but then the next problem opens its mouth.

The vocals are terrible, with no variety in either their cadence or tone - it’s one long, boring grumble that sounds like every moment of a particularly stiff one on the crapper. This band have to sort it out or they’re going absolultely nowhere.

It’s a shame, because musically they’re appreciably tight, if uninventive. Lyricaly as well it’s predictable, with that I will, You will, I am, You are, Your God sort of stuff that is, in truth, one of death metal’s greater crimes, but which Corral are not going to be excused from.

There are moments of hope. The band’s otherwise decent tightness and excellent chugging sound make the end of ‘Hell Yeah!’, despite it’s fanciful title, sound both emphatic and crushingly heavy. If they could just sound like this all the time, things would be great.

They don’t though, and as such it’s a rather gormless if well played and well produced rumpus of beer swillin’ wind millin’ tatoo-ya WWF fan stuff. One reaches the end with no more a clue of who this band are, and what they have to say, than when it started. But then, perhaps there wasnt anything. A conundrum, to be sure.

Ciaran Tracey ::: 07/10/08