The Block
While I love both concept albums and video games, the two definitely don't go together. Unlorja, a self proclaimed 'Nintendo Metal Band', created this album as the story of two brothers who get at odds with each other and then the one brother kills the other with the sward which is aptly named 'Unlorja'.
Now the music is definitely not something that I would like to listen to while I'm playing my video games by any stretch of the imagination. The almost chaotic thrash/groove metal that Journal plays is ok for most of the time, but after a while it starts to wear down on my patience. Granted it does have some wicked guitar playing during a lot of the album, but the vocals are absolutely horrendous. The album goes back and forth between trash and grindcore the whole time, and that is not a combination that is kind to the ears in any sense. What's different about this album is that every once in a while there's a soft song to break it up from the ear splitting madness that is Unlorja.
The one good song on this album is the outro, a 30 minute epic that is very progressive and concludes this Nintendo inspired story. Thankfully the only vocals on this track are spoken and while this might seem a little weird to most people it is really cool especially with the underlying guitar work during the whole song.
While all this might sound great to some people, I found it a little too rushed and chaotic. I didn't get much enjoyment out of this one, but some people might if you like fast, screaming, chaotic music. But from me it's getting 2 stars.