Time Signature Drawn to groove...

Genre: groove metal

After Pantera revolutionized metal by injecting a lethal dose of Southern groove steroids into their thrash metal style, a plethora of metal bands embraced the groove, and the groove metal scene exploded. Most of these bands were but pale imitations of Pantera, but every now and then a really good groove metal band pops up, such as Machine Head, Invocator, and, more recently, Zero Illusion as well as, of course, Adrenaline Mob.

To this list, we can add Diretone. They're not quite there yet, but their eponymous debut album definitely indicates that they could, if they keep developing their music, take up a deserved seat in the upper echelons of groove metal.

The style on this album is, as mentioned, groove metal with emphasis on groove. The tracks on the album are, despite the occasional outing into more uptempo territory, kept at mid to heavy tempos and dominated by crushingly heavy and extremely groovy riffs, which are executed with impressive precision, just check out the main riffs of tracks like "It Never Ends", "Drawn to Life", "While You Forget", and "Road". The band have deliberately decided to keep the level of technicality reasonable low, although they are very accomplished musicians, in order to focus on groove and (southern) rock 'n' roll spirit and broad accessibility. An important part of groove , I would argue, is precision, and the performance is very tight - the rhythm guitars do not miss a note, and the drums - played by Henrik Glass (known for his work with death-doomsters Saturnus) - run like a clockwork.

So, unlike acts like Invocator and Zero Illusions, this is not a technical album, but still, the guitar solos are quite impressive and successfully combine rock 'n' roll feel with quite advanced and technical solo playing, which should be enough to make any guitar fan drool like a hungry baby.

The vocals sound like a blend of James Hetfield and Jacob Hansen (who, as it happens, actually mixed the album) - well, sometimes it actually sounds exactly like James Hetfield. And this is my only reservation towards Diretone's debut - I think that the vocals sometimes sound too much like James Hetfield and I would have preferred a more original and identifiable style of singing. The Pantera, Metallica, and Machine Head and, to some extent also Megadeth and perhaps Invocator are perhaps quite obvious, but in general that is not a problem since, let's face it, those bands are not the worst bands you can be inspired by.

Diretone debut is definitely a crushing album, and, a true lesson in solid groovy riffage, it is recommended to fans of groove metal acts like Pantera, Machine Head, Invocator, Adrenaline Mob and Zero Illusions.

Coffin Joe Diretone plays one hell of a groove metal!

Now, Diretone is both a great groove metal record & at the same time a little to closely tied to their inspirations. In a genre that has grown stale with Pantera wannabes, we are in dire need of something fresh. Diretone plays a really solid heavy grove metal with nods towards thrash metal icons like Metallica & Megadeth. The sound is very rich, and the production is top notch. Like Adrenalin Mob, Diretone are here to groove the hell out of you without overcomplicating things - and that is a mission accomplished! The musicianship at display is solid and very tight, and you know right from the very first track, that these guys know how to play! The choice to play straight forward groove-metal pays off, as it's hard not to get infected with the groove bug. This is an album, that really deserves to be played loud at parties - expect people running wild though!

My biggest beef with an otherwise impressive debut is the vocals. It's not that lead singer/bass-player Lars Hørning can't sing, but he borrows to much from James Hetfields way of singing - sometimes it's actually hard to hear it's not Hetfield on vocals. In my book it's definitely a draw back, as most of the groove-scene is crying for original acts to appear, and Diretone could really have delivered on that point. There's a fine line between homage and copying, and I think Diretone is in danger of crossing that line with the vocals.

All in all Diretone have created a really great album, and if you can get passed the "Hetfield" singing, you are in for a joyride in the groove-metal roller coaster. With Diretone and acts like Adrenaline Mob my faith is slowly becoming restored in groove-metal. I can only hope Diretone can continue to grow, and develop their own sound. Right now we have a promising debut, the next thing we need from them, is a album that really shows us, they can stand on their own two legs - yeah it's a lot to ask, but I'm sure they can pull it off, and we desperatly need original bands on the groove metal scene.