Clown - Remedy for Bliss
Rating
RIYL
SpokenSlipknot
Age of Ruin
Living Sacrifice
Tracklist
1. Sulphur Hands2. The Mansion
3. Treasure Hunting
4. The Sum of Nothing
5. Ignite & Draw
6. Trademark Insult
7. LA Law
8. Gloves Off
9. Daysick
10. Anemic
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There is an often-overlooked sect of music. Everyone's well aware of the bands you're absolutely fanatical about, the bands you can't live without, the guilty pleasures, the "they're decent enough that I don't feel bad liking them" kinds of bands. But the one everyone misses is the "band I heard one time and didn't really like, yet I'm strangely drawn to them and have to download everything they do, even though nothing they've ever done has struck me as being that good…" band. To me, Clown is that band. At first, they were just another band influenced by Slipknot without the utter chaos and with no real knowledge of when to stop repeating themselves. They wrote six-minute songs that could easily have been three without being any worse for wear. Eventually, Clown found a more succinct way to steal Slipknot's riffs while still backing them with piss-poor drumming. But with Remedy for Bliss, they're attacking a whole new monster, albeit badly.
Throwing off their past shackles, the band finds itself crafting an album that sounds like some exotic combination of decent nu-metal crafted with stereotypical metalcore. The end result is a ten-track album that has two slightly above-neutral songs and a bunch of forgettable ones. "The Mansion," for instance, shows a touch of promise, but the completely degenerate and boring distortion use and abysmal spoken-word kill it. Strangely, this combination works to an almost-enjoyable degree on "Ignite and Draw." This is exactly the reason I keep listening to this band. Because sometimes, their shit almost works. Almost. And I want to be there when/if it finally does.
Meanwhile, "Trademark Insult" finds itself in the odd territory of being one of the best things the band has ever written. It uses a hefty dose of the metalcore blueprint, but somehow seems oddly invigorating. Maybe it's just a case of the ugly chick who looks fairly good simply because her friends are so much more hideous, but this track actually does something for me. Could be that the intro to the track sounds like the retarded cousin of "Blood and Thunder." Then again, this track also seems like it could easily get some play on the more forward-thinking radio stations, as it combines the aforementioned Mastodon with the increasingly-popular metalcore scene while still having a huge, though brief, chorus. Honestly, I could really see this song going somewhere.
Of course, it's still surrounded by useless piles of drivel and worse. Forgive them, though. They're from that area that's really cold. No, not Minnesota; Scandinavia. They don't know any better. It's like Children of Bodom without solos or arpeggios. If you're looking for the next hot band to avoid, Clown isn't it. You'd have to know they exist before you could ignore them, right?
--Ben Rice
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Dallas, Texas