Look What I Did - Minuteman For The Moment
Combat
Metalcore with touches of Pop, Grind, Jazz, and Hard Rock
12 songs (52:02)
Release year: 2005
Reviewed by Aaron
Surprise of the month

I’d honestly never heard of this band ‘till I headed over to the new Combat Records website a few weeks ago, and lo and behold, bands with names like Horse The Band and Look What I Did were the order of the day. Certainly different from their old roster of thrash, thrash, oh, and some thrash to go with that. Now they’ve cornered the market on, um, whatever-the-heck-this-is-core. Great! That’ll garner them loads of The Dilinger Escape Plan fans. But enough about Combat’s new direction.

To get a basic idea of what Look What I Did sound like, here’s what you do: Take equal amounts of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More, blend liberally for three minutes. Then put that mixture on the stove to simmer. Add in a pinch or two of Jane’s Addiction, some of Extreme Noise Terror’s guitar work, a dose of metalcore to ensure crispiness, just a tiny little dash of jazz, and some pop-influenced vocal harmonies to top the whole thing off. Then cook for an additional 42 minutes, until the crust is slightly charred, garnish at your leisure, and serve! Enough for many perplexed meals.

The production is what you would call varied- it seems to adapt, like a chameleon, equally well to the grind flourishes, pop vocal melodies, technical guitar-wanking, and the jazz-influenced bass slaps. It’s extremely clear, and the bass is mixed very prominently, which is always a plus in my book. The drums are muted a bit unnecessarily, but sound extremely organic to me, and that’s another plus (you eventually get sick of the same click-click-click-trigger sound, right? I know I do). The vox are decently mixed, but the frontman himself is an issue, I’ll get to that.

The drummer is a weak link: though he obviously wants to be a jazz drummer, he falls far short of the mark set even by the guy from Into The Moat, who pulls off the Jazz/Metal stylistic fusion (juxtaposing mechanical blastbeats with more inventive fills and sophisticated use of the cymbals) with much more, well, style, and flair. The vocalist is also a problem, he’s irritating at times, and off-putting at times, but manages some truly memorable vocal lines as well.

The tunes themselves rarely cross over into the realm of self-referencing randomity (it’s a word now, okay?) like most of the bands like this do. Sure, the lyrics are complete inane nonsense with vague overarching reference to George Bush and such odd things as getting stranded on a desert island, but it all sounds quite serviceable screamed out.

The best songs on this are songs like the raging Jane’s Addiction-influenced title track with its huge ominous bassline underneath a spastic metalcore riff and some Phil Anselmo-ish vocalizing interspersed with drunken half-singing and real singing, The Soiree with it’s grindcorey rampaging riffs and neckbreak switches between anti-commercial rage and singsong pop choruses, and Chest Is A Ribcage, what with the militaristic marching drum patterns overlaid with another great bassline that suddenly break into a doomy rhythm with some of the better vocal lines on the album. The choppy vocal patterns on the chorus are fun as well.

I'd say the biggest problem Look What I Did have going for them is a two-pronged sword. Their tunes are inconsistent, at times compelling, at times boring, at times genius, and at times so utterly frustratingly annoying (see Ultimate Complete Home Fitness Machine, with repeated annoying shouts of dumb crap about china) that you just want to beat the drummer over the head with a goddamn crowbar. A few of these songs are just lousy (aside from the abovementioned, I'd chuck Benevolesaurus Rex and The FOX eats Tvishmael in that category) and filled with half-baked ideas, that drags them down many points.

Bottom line, if you like The Dilinger Escape Plan, or anything from the new Combat Records, try this out. You’ll like it well enough.

Killing Songs :
Minuteman For the Moment, The Soiree, Chest is a Ribcage
Aaron quoted 76 / 100
Other albums by Look What I Did that we have reviewed:
Look What I Did - Atlas Drugged reviewed by Goat and quoted 80 / 100
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There are 6 replies to this review. Last one on Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:24 pm
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