You would not expect a band from Germany to have become as stricken by a plague that makes their booty move as Slope has on their new album “Freak Dreams” (Century Media Records). The slapped bass and in-your-face energy might make more sense if it were being delivered by skater punks from Southern California in the summer of 1989. Slope wastes no time laying out their own uplifting mofo party plan. This unique approach sounds like it could catch on much, in the same manner, Turnstile proved audiences are ready for more grooves and tired of the same old same old. “It’s Tickin” proves that the band is not just living off of the nostalgia for 90s funk rock, though it does have doses of that as well.
The band’s hard-core influence does not take center stage until “Nose Dive”. Despite this and other bursts of bursts of aggressive guitar, their grooves are more convincing than their attempts at lashing out with a psycho beta breakdown. There are moments when the bipolar nature of their contrasting ambitions comes across as being less self-assured with the song “Hectic Life”. At other times they wear their influences boldly on their sleeves, but the enthusiasm of their execution is what provides the tipping point to their songwriting success. This is the case on “True Blue” where they go as far as even blatantly lifting a lyrical phrase of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Even their most hard-core leaning riffs do not obscure the fact that early Chili Peppers are one of their central influences, making the hooks that hold who they are as a band that much more essential.
As a general rule, the typically rapped vocals are what dominate this album, placing them on the more nu-metal side of the equation. The actual singing that is employed on this album can be a little pitchy despite the love they received in the studio. So do not show up here for any artistic depth but for an album that is just fun, and takes you back to an exciting place in time when music was taking a wild left turn into a rowdy neighborhood. This can best be felt on “Ain’t Easy” as it might be the album’s best song, as it reaches a perfect balance of funk and metal. It benefits from an arrangement that gives all the song’s moving parts room to breathe.
The last couple of songs find them returning to more of a hard-core sound. They execute this well enough, but it leads you to suspect that these guys used to be a hard-core band who grew away from that style, but return to it to prove to themselves that they still can pull it off despite their hearts belonging to the slap of the bass. If you are old enough to have heard this sort of thing when it hit the scene back in the day, you might enjoy this trip down memory lane. If you are too young to know any better then this will seem more groundbreaking. Either way, this album has a lot of heart and is fun for what it is. Century Media has certainly seen the writing on the wall regarding the ’90s revival, and this is a worthy entry to lead this side of Nu-Metal’s second coming.
Buy the album here:
https://slope.lnk.to/FreakDreams-Bio
8 / 10
WIL CIFER