Premonitions of War – Left in Kowloon / 2004 Victory Records / 12 Tracks / http://www.premonitionsofwar.com / http://www.victoryrecords.com / Released 27 January 2004 / Reviewed 01 February 2004
Hey, Victory has a band that isn’t trying to cash in on the emo sound? And Premonitions of War sounds like the old Victory bands, what about that? Utterly brutal guitars mix in with break-neck drumming and cookie monster vocals to create a mishmash of metal, hardcore, and heavy metal. Each song starts and stops before one can actually realize whats happening. The crew in Premonitions of War blast through a song for about two minutes, get tired of the song, and proceed into the next similarly sounding track. Lets not get me wrong here – this band has some serious talent, and is technical to a fault. While Premonitions of War prints out a lyric sheet, I just really have to take the band for granted, as there is honestly no part of this CD that contains vocals enough to be deciphered. In tracks like “Black Den”, the plodding drumming laid down by Schoenhofer really add something to the bubbling intensity of the track. The guitar on the track makes this track more like Corrosion of Conformity and early Danzig, and is probably the most radio-friendly track on the disc.
Continuing to shake “Left in Kowloon” up from the mustiness encountered by 5 tracks that were virtually similar, “Cables Hum Overhead” is sputtering with energy, noise laid down by guitars, and really shows the band able to create an atmosphere instead of the former no-frills type of heavy metal that they were relying on for the first half of the CD. However, the gang of Premonitions of War just have no idea when a good shut-off point would be for the aforementioned song, grinding it into the ground for five minutes, of which possibly 3 could be knocked off as drift-wood.
What Premonitions of War is talented at is going around and creating killer openings to songs, and slowly going into the same rut that they continually find themselves in. “The Octopus” has a Dimebag Darrell-type of guitar, and a set of vocals that would indicate something similar to Superjoint Ritual than anything. However, this band is no better for the greater part of “Left in Kowloon” than 90% of the other metal bands out currently, rather using as a crutch those same stale guitar licks and double bass action that were only innovative when Slayer and Venom used them in the early eighties. I am definitely a fan of heavy metal, but Premonitions of War needs to find that spark that will differentiate them from that one band in every town that does this same schtick.
Top Tracks : The Octopus, Black Den
Rating : 4.1/10