Made up of former members of Mudvayne, Hellyeah and nu metal also-rans Skrape, Audiotopsy don’t sound like the most illustrious of supergroups.
You might expect to dissect their debut and find the remnants of nu metal’s bones and a few gristly riffs, but Natural Causes is actually bulging with blood and guts.
Take All We Know, with its windswept chorus that brings to mind America’s open roads or a locals’ dive bar. Or The Calling, with its Alice In Chains-alike vocal harmonies and massive, throat-back, lungs-open growls. Some lyrics are over-angsty (see LYLAB, which stands for ‘Love You Like A Bitch’), but there’s a primal immediacy to these songs that outstrips anything their former bands have done. And while the album title brings death to mind, the band also invoke actual nature; H2O (Interlude) is the sound of rain, while Swim is about the cleansing power of the ocean. Sometimes Audiotopsy’s take on grunge is a little clumsy, but by channelling it through a modern sea of modern metal, they prove they’re greater than the sum of their parts.
