UMUR "Five Deadly Venoms" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, Texas based progressive metal act Shaolin Death Squad. The album was released through Do For It Records in January 2010. It´s the successor to "Intelligent Design" from 2006 and the band members still have stage names like The White Swan, Black Ninja (who is actually King Diamond drummer Matt Thompson), and Red Dragon. As far as I can see there´s been one lineup change as bassist White Dragon has been replaced by Praying Mantis. The lyrical themes are also still about martial arts and asian myths and cystoms. It´s a pretty unique lyrical concept and band image, and off the top of my head I can only think of one other artists who has a similar lyrical approach and that´s US death metal act Dim Mak. About half of the songs on the album form a concept story inspired by the 1978 martial arts film "Five Deadly Venoms" directed by Chang Cheh.

Stylistically the material on "Five Deadly Venoms" continue the progressive metal style with alternative rock/metal leanings which was also heard on "Intelligent Design". Lead vocalist The White Swan has a voice and singing style which is similar to Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Tomahawk...etc.) and it´s impossible not to mention especially Faith No More as an influence on Shaolin Death Squad. When that is said it is mostly the vocals which point in that direction. Shaolin Death Squad have a sound which is very much their own. They don´t come from the Dream Theater school of progressive metal, and it´s actually hard to pin down their influences (other than Mike Patton/Faith No More). It´s not overtly technical progressive metal with many instrumental runs. Instead it´s more focused on atmosphere, storytelling, drama, and heavy riffs and atmosphere enhancing keyboards, but most of all strong melodies. "Five Deadly Venoms" is an incredibly melodic album throughout.

The musicianship is strong on all posts, although The White Swan has a tendency to steal the show with his powerful, melodic, and passionate vocals. "Five Deadly Venoms" featutures a detailed, powerful, and well sounding production job, which suits the music perfectly, and the only issue I can find about this album is that for all the focus on melody throughout the album, it´s not always an immediately catchy or memorable release and the tracks generally take time to learn to tell apart. So there´s some work cut out for the listener. You don´t get everything served on a plate for you, but I guess that should sound intriguing to most fans of progressive metal. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

UMUR "Intelligent Design" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Texas based progressive metal act Shaolin Death Squad. The album was released independently in November 2006. While the "Shaolin Death Squad (2004)" EP showed great promise, it´s obvious that it was the band´s first release and it was somewhat immature in the songwriting department. It did however introduce the band´s obsession with martial arts and asian myths and customs. The band members have even taken on stage names like The White Swan, Black Ninja and Red Dragon and pose in traditional asian clothes on their press photos. Pretty unconventional for a metal act.

The whole image thing is of course just a means to an end though, and none of that would work without great music, and we´re certainly treated to that on "Intelligent Design". The music on the album is a sort of alternative/progressive metal. It´s not easy to describe how the music sounds, but there is a definite Faith No More influence present. Predominantly because lead vocalist The White Swan has a voice and singing style that are reminiscent of the voice and singing style of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle...etc.), but there are similarities in the instrumental part of the music too.

It´s very eclectic music with strong melodies, great vocal harmony and choir work, and a general disregard for genre labels. There are heavy, and at times almost thrashy sections on the album, more mellow parts, epic parts, and quirky almost carnival bizarre parts. It´s an incredibly adventurous release featuring high level musicianship, a well sounding production, and songwriting that´s generally intriguing. Keyboards play a big role in the music in addition to guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

While "Intelligent Design" is certainly both a challenging and adventurous release by Shaolin Death Squad, it´s also quite accessible, which should stand in contrast to each other, but somehow doesn´t. Those catchy melodies are the main reason, but even when the band play their most complex parts, they never lose focus on delivering memorable music and that´s probably one of their greatest strengths. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Negoba Hybrid of the Best

Shaolin Death Squad blends together two of my favorite prog metal bands ever, Pain of Salvation and Mr. Bungle. The latter has inspired a small but significant group of imitators, some of which are brilliant, some lite versions, and some just bafflingly wierd. Unfortunately, we don't have alot of bands doing prog metal in the mold of early PoS. As a result, this album is a welcome delight for me. From Mr. Bungle, we get some zany rapid switches between genres, quirky humor, and the vocalist's obvious allusions to Mike Patton. From Pain of Salvation, we get the thicker wall of sound, more decipherable concepts, and a widened vocal approach that includes a stronger sense of melody. There are even a few allusions to my favorite prog metal artist of all, Devin Townsend.

The album opens with a subtle acoustic guitar with some ambient effects on the track "Romanza." But after this introduction, we get a steady chugging electric guitar that sounds disturbingly like pop punk. On first listen, I was worried I'd wasted my money. But the track, "Centipede" evolves with more and more interesting ideas, weaving more sounds than most entire pop albums. But it's not until "Snake" that the album really takes off. It starts with a pulsing bass figure that eventually explodes with energy. There is a particularly powerful riff at 2:00 that is just awesome. The songs is the most PoS like of the group, and from there the albums just hums for quite awhile. The remaining animal named songs are just great, each having its own little morsel of delicious music for the listener to devour.

The rest of the album is a little more uneven. "Mischief and Epiphany" maintains the energy with a ska-ish rhythm that leads into glorious riffing. "Let Us Welcome the Actors" is the kind of self-reflecting theme that nevers works for me in any artform, and the momentum starts to wane. It's is fairly reminiscent of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, another Bungle descendent. "Last Stand" begins with a groove straight off Faith No More's ANGEL DUST and then moves to a robo-voice that had poked its nose in a few times earlier. The last two tracks are strange in that they both sound like they were meant to be album closers, but the band couldn't decide which one to use. They are both good songs, but it makes the album end with a strange taste.

Overall, the middle of FIVE DEADLY VENOMS is very close to masterpiece level prog metal. In a weak year, this album is high on my best of 2010 list. But the slow start and slightly stumbling ending make the decision between four and five stars easy for me. But still this album comes highly recommended.

bonnek Five Deadly Venoms is my first Shaolin experience and I must say this has been a most pleasing revelation. The band operates in the Prog Metal zone and they sure make a fresh appearance there. I might add that such is not hard in a rather stale scene that has never done much for me, Psychotic Waltz excepted.

One name should dominate any review of this album: Faith No More. The obvious reasons being the brilliant Mike Patton-alike vocals and the quirky eclectic nature of their metal. The sound is somewhat different though, scarcer on the keyboards then Angel Dust for instance and without the bouncy funk/crossover influences from Epic. So what's left is definitely more metal-ish, but it's adventurous metal where anything can and does happen in the songs. Some of these non-metallic side-steps are quite prog, sometimes reminding of Gentle Giant, other diversions are the Zappa-esque RIO influences.

Despite the scary name of this band, people with grunt allergy can rest assured, there's nothing but clean vocals here. Also AOR-skeptics like myself should not be afraid, this band is a cool bunch and won’t compromise their songwriting with sing-along pomp rock.

Shaolin Death Squad are wilder then Faith No More but not as insane as Mr Bungle. That makes it an excellent album for me, recommended to all metal fans in need for a fresh and credible chunk of steel that sits outside of the Extreme Metal realm.

UMUR Shaolin Death Squad is a self-titled EP release by American progressive metal act Shaolin Death Squad. The EP was released in February 2004. It´s a self-released affair and the EP is the first official release by the band. The 30:53 minute long EP contains 6 tracks.

The music on the album is not your everyday Dream Theater influenced progressive metal. Rather the band have opted for a style that´s really hard to define, but there are both progressive and alternative metal elements on the album. Lead vocalist Androo O'Hearn ( or The White Swan as he also goes by) has a voice that´s very similar to the voice of Mike Patton and it´s difficult not to mention Faith No More as a big influence. It´s not only the voice that leads to this comparison, but don´t fear a Faith No More clone by any means. Shaolin Death Squad definitely have their own style and sound. The music is generally very melodic and the songlines memorable. The songs are not terribly complex, but there are sections here and there that are undeniably progressive. The songwriting are of high quality and the musicianship excellent, so you´ll get top notch performances all around. The production is also very good and I´m sure you wouldn´t guess this was a self-released affair if you didn´t know. Now I said the songwriting is of high quality, but honestly it´s the first three songs on the EP that really takes the prize. The last three songs on the EP are not quite as interesting and especially the ambient instrumental Sleepless doesn´t do that much for me. It´s enjoyable but not really excellent.

All in all the Shaolin Death Squad EP is definitely worth a listen if you enjoy a combination of progressive and alternative metal. A 3 star rating is deserved. Had the latter part of the EP been better I would have given a 3.5 star rating. It´s a very promising first release though.