SOiL - True Self review
| Band: | SOiL |
| Album: | True Self |
| Style: | Grunge, Hard rock |
| Release date: | May 2006 |
01. Fight for Life
02. Give It Up
03. Pick Me Up
04. The Last Chance
05. True Self
06. Hear Me
07. Forever Dead
08. Let Go
09. Until It's Over
10. Jaded
11. Threw It Away
12. One Last Song
Chicago's Soil has long been a source of somewhat uneven music, located somewhere in between Alice In Chains and Down. However, as potent as this mixture might sound, the band rarely pulls it off with overwhelming success, too often allowing themselves to indulge in mediocrity. Although the band now has a different vocalist, not much has changed as far as the quality of their output is concerned - True Self, save for a few inspired moments, is entirely as forgettable as the remainder of Soil's catalogue.
The greatest problem here is the band's over-reliance on cliché post-grunge refrains and song structures. Sometimes this approach works, but very rarely. One such instance is "The Last Chance", which is an excellent song by any standards. Admittedly though, Soil allows themselves to focus more on powerful riffing here than a sappy, overwrought refrain. "Forever Dead" also follows this more successful formula but unfortunately not to as good an effect. By far the highlight here is the ballad "Let Go" though and this is obviously something the band is very good at. Instead of churning out songs that are somewhere in the comfortable middle between aggressive rock and emotional ballad, Soil should really try to separate these two styles and capitalize on their power as single entities. It works every time it's done on True Self but it's simply not done often enough?
On the other hand, the pure performance of all the musicians of Soil is quite impressive. Especially the vocalist offers a powerhouse performance, alternating effortlessly between roaring and a Layne Stanley-like croon. The production is equally powerful so listening to True Self is not exactly a painful experience, even though the songwriting is often sub-par.
So there we have it, a band with a lot of potential but lacking the balls to utilize it fully. With better and more dynamic songwriting, Soil could definitely make some heads turn. As it is though, their music is too safe, repetitive and predictable to really warrant my recommendation.
 | Written on 06.12.2006 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool. |
Comments
Comments: 7
Visited by: 35 users
| Baz Anderson Posts: 13237 From: UK  |
ive known Soil a long time and i used to really like them. 'Scars' (i think it was called) and 'Redefine' i really loved them albums! but then the singer left so i didnt bother looking into any new stuff and i just forgot about them and their albums were deleted off my computer maybe i will have a look back at them when i go home for christmas.. how is the new singer.. how does his performance stand up to that of the last one?
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| __Az__ Posts: 859 From: UK  |
Written by Baz Anderson on 06.12.2006 at 16:24 Yeah, I used to quite like SOil aswell. Saw them live and everything, not sure how much I like them now anyway.
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| Baz Anderson Posts: 13237 From: UK |
Written by __Az__ on 15.06.2007 at 02:28 yeh, I got my albums back from the pile of CDs I never listen to not long ago and ripped them onto here.. it was really weird listening to them again but I still like them. it isn't the music I would go for now but I enjoy it for the other reasons.. "Redefine" actually has a very strong emotional connection with me.. it was the first album I listened to whilst still in "shock" after something kinda bad happened.. it was really bad at the time anyway (the event, not the album. haha)
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| __Az__ Posts: 859 From: UK |
Written by Baz Anderson on 15.06.2007 at 02:40 ha ha... Well, yeah, the album isnt so bad. I own the self titled album, loved it at the time, still pretty decent...
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| Olli Posts: 362 From: UK  |
Written by __Az__ on 15.06.2007 at 02:42 Self Titled? I thought they only had "Throttle Junkies", "Scars", "Redefine" and "True Self"? Anyway the new vocalist is awesome, I liked the old guy alot too. I pretty much agree with this review but I dol enjoy the majority of their songs 
---- When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
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| +{Jonas}+ I R Serious Cat Posts: 4955 From: Colombia  |
Actually the new vocalist, IMO, lacks the power Ryan McCombs has. It's still a good album... Being Redefine their best. Ryan should've stayed with the band anyway, he doesn't fit Drowning Pool at all.
---- "Nobody wants to be the weird kid, you just end up being the weird kid. You don't know how you ended up getting there" - Rob Zombie http://jonas-bs.deviantart.com My dA, mainly photography, go check it out!
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| Uirapuru Liver Failure Posts: 2955 From: Brazil  |
Quote: Couldn't agree more. I really didnt get into this album, but the previous two somehow are always on my playlist. It's hard to notice the difference, but there are..
----  ---- member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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