UMUR "Probot" is the debut full-length studio album by US metal act Probot. The album was released in February 2004 by Southern Lord Recordings. Probot is a project created by Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana...etc.). He handles all instruments on the album except for a couple of guest guitarist appearances by people like Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), Matt Sweeney (Zwan, Chavez) and a couple of others. Probot was created as a tribute to Dave Grohl´s early eighties to mid nineties metal roots and the 11 tracks on the 52:47 minutes long album feature vocals by one metal legend after the other. People like King Diamond (King Diamond, Mercyful Fate), Eric Wagner (Trouble), Lemmy (Motörhead) and Cronos (Venom) are just a couple of the prolific names who contribute with vocals to the album.

As with most releases of this sort "Probot" is hardly a consistent release and how much you enjoy the individual tracks, probably depends a lot on how much you appreciate the lead vocalist on the various tracks. It´s obvious that Dave Grohl is a skilled songwriter and arranger as the tracks generally suit the lead vocalists chosen for the tracks really well. The track "Red War" where Max Cavalera (Sepultura, Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, Nailbomb) sings sound very much like something that could have been included on "Chaos A.D. (1993)" or maybe "Roots (1996)" while "Shake Your Blood" which features Lemmy on lead vocals and bass sounds unmistakably like Motörhead. And that includes the instrumental arranging of the track as well as the vocals. Highlights here for me are "Sweet Dreams" (feat. King Diamond), "My Tortured Soul" (feat. Eric Wagner) and "Shake Your Blood" (feat. Lemmy) but all tracks are more or less enjoyable.

While "Probot" is probably Dave Grohl´s wet dream come true (and who can blame him, that lucky bastard!), I think it´s so and so with the entertainment level for us mere mortals. Some tracks stand out as sligthly better than others, but the album is generally a pretty standard affair. Somewhere around a 3 star rating is warranted.