Goretorture at Myspace

I wanted to like this album, I really did. I hoped that it would have the same sense of goofy fun that Arnocorps had and that Austrian Death Machine lacked. I mean, I love brutal death metal, so what could be better than a brutal death metal album where every song has an Arnold Schwarzenegger sample? Plenty, that’s what.

The production is absolutely abysmal, as if I was hearing a performance that went through YouTube levels of compression. Normally, I don’t put much emphasis on production, but this album is just insanely muddy. I could have looked past that if the material was good, but all aspects are mediocre at best. The vocals don’t really stand out much and aren’t especially good, the guitars are fairly generic, and the drum machine is so badly programmed that I had to double-check to make sure that Lars Ulrich hadn’t guested on some tracks. And the humorous samples don’t really add as much as I had hoped; one song has an excruciatingly long three-minute sample that takes up half of the track.

If you’re curious about what Mortician would sound sound like if they were obsessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger films instead of horror movies, you might want to check this out. Everyone else should stay far away.

Austrian Death Machine at Myspace

Austrian Death Machine is a one-man Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute project by As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis. When I first heard of this, I was ambivalent, as I liked the concept, but knew that As I Lay Dying was a metalcore band, and that genre has quite a bad reputation (I have avoided it completely until now). Well, the album wasn’t quite as bad as I feared, but I can’t quite recommend it, either.

First of all, Lambesis doesn’t even attempt to sound like Arnold. The between-song skits and a few songs feature an Arnold impersonator (not Lambesis), but this impression is somewhat inconsistent. Lambesis’ vocals are just generic metalcore yelling, which doesn’t really fit the goofy tone I expected from an Arnold tribute. The drums are a mixture of Lambesis’ playing and a drum machine, and they don’t really stand out, while the bass is barely audible. However, Lambesis’ guitar work is quite good; I would’ve guessed that he was a guitarist and not a singer had I gone in knowing nothing other than that this was a one-man project. The songwriting is also decent; the lyrics are amusing and the soloing is quite good. I also have to commend Lambesis for writing not one, but two songs based on Kindergarten Cop (“Who is Your Daddy, and What Does He Do?” and “It’s Not a Tumor”.)

All in all, this album isn’t horrible, it’s just pretty generic. I’d definitely recommend Arnocorps over this, but metalcore fans will probably enjoy it.

Arnocorps at Myspace

Arnocorps has to have one of the best concepts for a gimmick band I’ve heard in quite a while. All of their songs are about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, although the band claims that they’re actually based on “Austrian folktales” which got ripped off by Hollywood. Their vocalist does a hilarious Arnold impression (I’m guessing that Robert Smigel’s impression from Late Night with Conan O’Brien was a strong influence). The music is thrash that leans more towards the punk side of the spectrum (crossover thrash isn’t a genre with which I have much experience), but the band dubs its music “Action-Adventure Hardcore Rock and Roll,” or “Arnocore”.

I have to admire the band’s audacity in titling their full-length debut “The Greatest Band of All Time;” while I can’t go quite that far in my praise for this album, most of the songs are quite catchy. The subject matter covers all of Schwarzenegger’s greatest movies, from Predator to Terminator to the Conan films. I would’ve liked to see some of his lesser films featured; while there is a song about the enormous flop “Last Action Hero,” I would’ve liked to see a few songs based on his comedies like “Kindergarten Cop” and “Jingle All the Way”. High points include the ridiculously catchy “Total Recall”, “Terminator,” and the semi-acoustic “Crom (Strong on His Mountain).”

Where should Arnocorps go next? My humble suggestion: a concept album about Arnold, from his role in “Hercules in New York” to him capturing the Governor’s Mansion. That would be brutal.