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As soon as you put Mudpusher’s “Redefine The Direction Of Mankind” into your CD player it will hit you like a ton of bricks. And it sounded very promising to start, but the further you delve into this release you can see why this is the band’s first release, and why its their first demo.
The majority of the riffs are rather simple. Mudpusher seem to change from heavy downtuned riffs to melodic choral metal riffs. Some of the heavier riffs are a bit odd and offbeat, like Meshuggah if they couldn’t keep their quarky time signature down.
Clean vocals are weak and awkward...when used for an extended period of time I wish they would just stop. It gets to you, kind of like nails on a chalkboard. The clean vocals need to improve, or just drop them...they are too outlandish. Death vox are pretty standard here; good guttural growls though.
Being that this is a first demo situation I don’t want to be to critical but what I take from “Redefine The Direction Of Mankind” is a chaotic assault. I like the heavy riffs and death vox, but the mixture with the melodic elements leaves more to be desired. Its almost like they wrote these songs without much of a plan. Productions sounds good. But when the production is the best thing about a CD, then the music needs some tweeking. Hopefully we will see some improvement on their next release.
Rating: 59
Reviewed By: Jeffrey D. Adkins