The opening strains to Avatar’s Dance Devil Dance (Thirty Tigers/Black Waltz Records) harken to southern rock. It hugs you like an old pair of Levi’s. However, once the main riff starts, it’s a heady mixture of Rob Zombie, hard-driving German metal, and nu-metal. If that is not enough to pique your interest, before the first track is over, the vocalist Johannes Eckerström, reaches down deep and lets loose a Paul Stanley vocalization. This is the beauty of Avatar’s Dance Devil Dance. Within the same song, they combine a multitude of genres together.
The second song mixes KISS and Warrant to create a nineties-style rock / metal club dancing thing. It’s titled ‘Chimp Moss Pit’, of course. The highlight is the groove-laden, metal guitars provided by Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström. The song is raunchy and fun and it’s darn near impossible not to want to get up and dance or shoot pool or both, at the same time. That is if you aren’t air drumming to John Alfredsson’s beastly beats.
Another favourite is ‘On the Beach’. This track sports a hard-driving opening. I flat-out love the riff; it’s grounded, brown. The guitars have this Indo-Arabic feel. Henrik Sandelin’s bass is amazing. Then out of the blue, it segues into this Mr. Bungle up and happy and pop-ish interlude and then back to growly cookie monster vocals over menacing bass lines and then speed races back into this wicked guitar and bass interplay and back to the Mr. Bungle sound. It makes your head spin. It’s gobsmackingly brilliant. I doff my cap to the erstwhile composers.
Every song on Avatar’s Dance Devil Dance gels together into a groovy, metalicious smorgasbord of awesomeness. The album starts strong and ends strong, there is no wasted space. Dance Devil Dance is full of air guitar, headbanging, and dancing goodness.
Buy the album here:
8 / 10
VICTORIA ANDERSON