Element Eighty - Mercuric
by James

I need to dispel the rumor flying around that you have to be the heaviest band in the world for me to like you. I cannot tell you how many bands have talked to me and mentioned "We aren't the hardest band around…" It is all gravy, yall. Good music is where you find it, in my opinion, and my CD collection has equal amounts of hard, soft and in between music. I would say Element Eighty rests nicely in the in-between area. They are by no means the heaviest band I have heard, but they aren't that soft, either. Mind you, how good a band is has nothing to do with how heavy they are, and vice versa. Like I said; good music is where you find it.

The basic sound E-80 is going for is that of bands like Sevendust, Disturbed and Staind. Heavy, bass-laden grooves with mostly melodic vocals and occasional yelling/screaming. They really excel at writing hard, thumping grooves that get your head bobbing along to the music. There isn't much that is really mosh-inducing, on Mercuric, but a few of the songs have a decent amount of raw aggression. The highlight of Element Eighty's music, in my opinion, is the guitar work. On more than a few occasions, guitarist Matt Woods pays obvious homage to guitar god Zakk Wylde, which is not something I am used to hearing from bands that play this style of metal. Hell, he even throws in occasional solos, which is some kind of blasphemy among the Nu Metal set, I thought. David Galloway's voice is really the only thing keeping this band firmly grounded in the mainstream scene they are trying to appeal to. If they had a screamer behind the mic, they would be a much heavier band, easily. That is not a dig against them, by any means. Merely an observation. David's vocals are soulful and heartfelt in most of the right places. Now if they could just work on their lyrics. That is, hands down, my largest complaint about this CD; the lyrics are, in places, quite bad. Not as bad as, say the new Limp Bizkit songs have been, but some of them just make me cringe. The other thing that I didn't care for was how some of their songs were structured. It just feels like they had a bunch of cool parts and stuck them to together, sometimes. Either that, or they will build to what you expect to be a huge payoff heavy part and go into a softer part, instead. A perfect example of this can be found on the song Ego, which starts off very angry and gets you all set for David to really cut loose in the chorus. Instead, the chorus is very light and melodic. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they are horrible songwriters, because they have a few really catchy songs on here, like Painmaker and Bloodshot, that I dig the hell out of. Painmaker was easy to like, though, because it starts out with some cool harmonized guitar work. I am a sucker for fast, harmonized guitars. Maybe that is why I love Pornlab? hehe.

All in all, I can easily put my admittedly nit-picking complaints about this CD aside and say that it is a quality album. The production is excellent and all four guys in the band show that they have a lot of talent at their instruments. If you are looking for a death metal or hardcore band, then you should look somewhere else. However, if you are just looking for a CD that is easy to get into and rock out to, then Mercuric is probably right up your alley.