J-Man Raunchy is among Denmark's most successful metal exports, and their fifth album, A Discord Electric, is definite justification for their praise. Here's an album that's filled with unforgettable choruses, tasteful musicianship, and overall strong compositions. Raunchy's style of super-melodic metalcore surely is not for everyone, but those who can tolerate a quality modern metal album should find plenty to love here.

The music on A Discord Electric is a mix of metalcore, melodic death metal, pop, and even touches of progressive metal. The prog metal touches lie mainly in the lush keyboard arrangements and atmospheric sections - a song like "Dim the Lights and Run" certainly has its progressive tendencies. For the most part, though, expect melodic metalcore with extremely memorable choruses. Most of Raunchy's strength lies in their ability to seamlessly mix crushing riffs with unforgettable melodies. This certainly isn't too "extreme" of an album, and most people who enjoy more melodic and commercial forms of metal should enjoy this one. The overall professionalism of A Discord Electric was one of the things that grabbed me from first listen; every single musician is a master on their respective instrument and the production is sleek, modern, and powerful.

All in all, if you're looking for some well-played and well-produced melodic metalcore, A Discord Electric is one of the best options out there. I can't say that this sort of thing is my preferred listening style, but there's more than enough quality music here to keep me satisfied the entire time. 3.5 stars seem fair here. This is highly recommended for fans of extreme metal on the less "extreme" side.

UMUR "A Discord Electric" is the 5th full-length studio album by melodic Danish metal act Raunchy. The album was released in October 2010 by Lifeforce Records.

Raunchy play a combination of styles such as melodic death metal, metalcore and pop/ rock. This is a mix of styles the band have played since the beginning. They´ve honed their craft along the way though and what we have here on "A Discord Electric" is probably the most memorable, well produced and well composed album yet released by the band. The first thing you notice when listening to this album is how good the band are at writing memorable chorus lines and secondly how close to being pop music disguised as metal they actually are. This shouldn´t be misinterpreted as something negative though, as one of Raunchy´s main appeals, definitely is their accessibility. They can go from playing powerful heavy riffs with synth backing and raw vocals to singing the most accessible chorus melodies in a matter of seconds and make it work. The opening track "Dim the Lights and Run" is probably the best example of this, but the quality is high throughout.

So if you´re interested in melodic and well composed metal with a focus on accessible melodies "A Discord Electric" is recommended. While some of the band´s influences are quite obvious ( I think there´s a very obvious Soilwork influence on the album. Albeit an influence from the most accessible part of Soilwork´s discography), Raunchy have their own sound. Generally the songs could have stood out a bit more from each other but that´s about my only complaint about the album so a 3.5 star rating is deserved.

Grann73 A spiked and sugarcoated fist right in the face.

The members of Raunchy have created a style of its own. According to the interviews that I have read they have named it death pop. In their own opinion they have taken this style to a new level on this album. Apparently they have tried to make the “death” elements even more brutal and the pop elements even poppier. A case in point is the (awesome) song “The yeah thing” whose verse features pounding drums, heavy guitars and aggressive vocals whereas the chorus is characterized by tasty keyboard work and clean vocals. This chorus is so unbeliveably catchy that if I listen to before I go to work (and I do) I am humming it for the rest of the day. This track is my favorite but “Nght Prty”, “Blueprints for lost sounds” and “Shake your grave” come close. I appreciate when bands have the courage to experiment. On this album the band has written a (heavy) pop song “Dim the lights and run”. It is guaranteed to alienate some fans, but in my opinion it works. It is a really strong track. “Blueprints for lost sounds” reminds me of the soundtrack for a spaghetti western with its somewhat unorthodox use of mouth organ. However, the level of brutality grows until the song reaches its climax, the extremely catchy and powerful chorus. These guys really have catchy choruses down cold. Before I get too carried away, I have to mention the song “Big Truth” which is written together with the young Danish band Dúne. As I mentioned earlier I usually like experiments and I really gave it a chance, but although it’s not a bad song I just don’t think it fits in with the rest of the songs. Apart from this, “A Discord electric” is an excellent album. There are great songs and very good songs (and “Big Truth”). This album is sure to end up on my personal top 10 of this year’s releases.