WATTAMEZZ – Soulfuel

Norway’s Wattamezz has been around since the early 1990s, but in that time they have just a scant four releases to their name. Soulfuel is their full-length debut album; it’s made up of 11 tunes, including both of the songs from 2004’s two-track release, Suicide Jesus.

Wattamezz plays propulsive Heavy Metal with a little bit of a Modern Rock feel to it, with lots of rough, coarse riffs and near-shouted vocals, some having religious overtones. A few songs feature sampled voices and Death Metal-style growls for variety. Most of the songs on Soulfuel feel like they have very slight layers of fuzz and distortion laid on top of them, giving them some grit and edge.

Soulfuel is one of those albums that has a handful of good songs sharing space with lesser tracks that don’t do a whole lot for the listener. None of the songs on this CD are bad in any way, but some of them don’t have a lot of impact; they just sort of “happen,” never really getting under your skin like they should. The highlight songs on Soulfuel can all be found in the middle third of the album, starting with “Sweet Sister” (Track Four) through to and including “Suicide Jesus” (Track Seven). Along with “When You’ve Gone The Devil’s Distance,” “Sweet Sister” is a pretty solid tune, coming across as a modern-sounding Deep Purple song. These two songs are probably the best on the album.

Outside of those four songs (“Insomnia” is the other one), the only other really strong song on Soulfuel is “The Year Of Fire.” Once again, there’s nothing wrong with the other six songs on this album, but they just sort of exist, immediately exiting your mind the moment they finish, despite the abundance of solid riffs throughout the album. But, five good songs are still five good songs no matter how you look at it, and that can’t be taken away from any band. That’s five more good songs than what could be found on the last studio album from Metallica, a band whom Wattamezz resembles sonically in some ways.

Soulfuel is a respectable debut for Wattamezz. It’s not a brilliant, award-winning release, and will never be considered a classic Metal album, but fans of Modern-sounding Metal will probably find some things to enjoy here.