Mind Equals Blown

Blessed By A Broken Heart Feel the Power

Power-Metal/Glam | Tooth & Nail Records

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5.0

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There’s something peculiar about Blessed By A Broken Heart. In their combination of epic melodic passages and near mechanic metal-tinged riffage, the quintet comes off as a mixture of hair metal meets Dragonforce-lite. As for the product, the band’s new album Feel the Power is oddly interesting in an awesomely bad way. It’s like every bad tasting cliche about metal has come together and been taken to the max, leaving us with an album that feels oddly familiar that we can’t quite shake from the back of our heads. Blessed By A Broken Heart might be the most polarizing band for listeners in a long time, calling for sounds of both present and past for an album that invades nearly every boundary of heavy music to create something quite tongue-in-cheek on the surface but oddly nostalgic in the face of sizzling guitars and stereotypical lyrics.

Maybe it’s because I recently dove back into one of my favorite video games of all time, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, but it isn’t hard imagining this band being the non-violent version of Love Fist. The only difference I can make between the two is that I can physically go see Blessed By A Broken Heart, while Love Fist would require me to go back into the shoes of Tommy Vercetti for a few hours or so. Still, the hair-metal aping sound of this album is prominent from front to back. Tracks like “Shut Up and Rock” and “Rockin’ All Night” ooze with zappy guitars and punching drums, all without ditching the upbeat, at-play lyricism that calls for, well, rocking. I’m not going to say we can’t have fun, but there is a line to be drawn between serious fun and tapping the keg dry in the name of cliches – and Feel the Power is a habitual offender. Everything seems so played out, whether it be the on-cue guitar solos or the hot-and-cold lyricism, it is difficult to figure out whether or not seriousness is an option. Even when the band goes for the stereotypical piano ballad, they sound straight out of one of those Buzz Ballads compilations, brandishing production-heavy melodies and clean vocals that simply scream of familiarity.

Constantly sounding like an electronically charged hair-band sounds awful on paper, but in living, breathing form, it has some enjoyable moments if we aren’t worried about paving new ground. “Forever” constructs a smooth verse to bridge between huge choruses, channeling some decently memorable lyrics before bringing in the solo train for a batch of serious licks that sound like Herman Li wrote them himself. I might not go as far as saying BBABH is a less fantasized re-incarnation of Dragonforce, but the sound of the power metal group is easy to sense at times in Feel the Power. “Holdin’ Back for Nothin’” also stands out, as the metalcore-tinged pulses of kick drum and guitar give a solid foundation for the reined-in melodies on this track. These instances are where they channel this sound with the most success – putting a bit of a modern spin on the tried and true brand of soaring metal.

But it isn’t all guitar wizardry and synthy bubbles of melody, as the quintet also funnels in a considerable post-hardcore edge ripe with crunching riffage (“Love Nightmare,” “Innocent Blood”) to even things out from time to time. At the very least it provides some differentiation between sections as much of Feel the Power is in much of the same vein throughout, as keeping to the soaring guitars, metalcore-styled drumming and clean vocals is very much the figured style here. The shifts to chunky riffs and gruff vocals, which in themselves are very mediocre as far as screams are concerned, make for interesting tangents in the sound, as very little of this record strays from the path set early on.

It’s difficult to say that this record is truly enjoyable, unless of course you prefer throwbacks to decades past when electric guitar solos and huge melodies were aplenty in the arena-rock circuit. When the nostalgia wears off is up to you, but besides sounding like a concoction of everything cheesy about metal this record has a few moments where Blessed By A Broken Heart rise even above themselves to create enjoyable riffs. For a throwback band tinged with sounds of today, they have all the right moves. Yet the buzz wears off quickly, as Feel the Power works better in small doses for those of us who don’t dream of living out our days as rockers in the ‘80s.

Author: Jason Gardner View Staff Page for Jason Gardner

Some time after graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in written communication, Jason figured it was time to put that knowledge to good use by delving into the world of music writing. In his spare time, he enjoys playing Xbox Live, where he dominates in n+ and Trials HD, but seemingly can’t beat most people half his age at Black Ops or Halo.

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