Overly long and electronic
Not to be confused with the CoffeeKillers, Caffeine Kill hail from Bristol and release this, their debut album, 'Still Bleeding' through Casket Music. From the first few bars of 'Beast Within' it's obvious that the influences of Rammstein, Gary Numan, NIN and Rob Zombie have shaped this band's vision. Caffeine Kill contains only three members, Jay Lutwyche on vocals, Mark O'Grady on synths and Programming and Pete Sears on Guitars and other bits n bobs. This is British Industrial Metal that, as you can probably guess, is littered with electronics, bubbles, squeaks, pops, quirks, patterned drums and vocals that are occasionally over FX'd.
Whereas Brit hopefuls SystemYK sound more like a bunch of amateurs let loose on cheap keyboard, Caffeine Kill instantly sound like they've been treading the sound stages of the land gaining valuable experience along the way. Some of you metal fans have already turned off because the band aren't a band in the true sense of the word, singer, guitarist, bass player, drummer etc... but my thinking is, do whatever it takes to make you creative. The problem is that a reliance on synths and programming can often lead to an overspill into the music, which is what we have here.
The already mentioned 'Beast Within' is overly heavy with 80's style electronics. This is acceptable for a track or two but after a full fifteen songs the will to live is pushed right to the limit. For myself, I had to listen to 'Still Bleeding' in chunks of four songs because it was just too much at times and I found myself getting irritated with artificial sounds. When the band gets the mix right, albeit with a groovy or effective keyboard section, it works very well. 'Faultless Imperfection' and 'Ultraviolet' are testament of this successful amalgamation. 'What Are You Waiting For?' is suitably different from anything else on the album and in that respects sticks out well as the CD's epic tune. But the song that works the best is the straight driven piano led pseudo ballad 'Release,' which send me back to the mid 80s for some reason.
There are certainly some good ideas on this disc, underneath all the untidy electronics are some good songs wanting to get out and on the odd occasion they do. What lets this release down is not only it's length but also the £20 car boot style guitar amp tone Pete Sears adopts. He's not doing anything particularly difficult, which is all the more reason for his guitar sections to really make an impact. His quest to be heard is hampered however by the electronics which constantly drown him out making the whole guitar section superfluous. The tunes that do have the guitars audible are those, which are your basic 3rd rate Rammstein rip offs.
I think with huge guitars, more controlled synths and less obvious Rammstein nods Caffeine Kill could be onto something because there's definitely something worthy in 'Still Bleeding' it just takes a while to find it. I found it because I like to give every album I review a chance to be heard, you, on the other hand, may be put off by the overuse of electronics. Those who love NIN and Rob Zombie may find a band to keep an eye on but I don't think 'Still Bleeding' matches any of the above-mentioned acts.