The American musicians from Godsmack have never posed themselves as the trend setters in hard rock. They realize that they are not cut out for the revolutionists in heavy music. Yet the band is really good at releasing regularly quality albums, which they have been doing for more than a decade now. And this is praiseworthy. Once having chosen song-writing and performing directions, Godsmack has been following this course all along and enhancing their skills gradually. The musical style of this ensemble is an amazing match for the format of any radio stations. On the on hand, this is rather an aggressive and heavy type of music based on dirty guitar sound originated from grunge; on the other hand, it has much space for interesting melodious solutions. This music will always have a large audience of people of different ages and tastes. Sales of Godsmack albums and the band’s songs grabbed steadily by radio stations prove it all the time. Why, then, do the musicians have to change their creative views? They have no reason to do that. The Oracle, an album released by Godsmack in the spring of 2010, presents practically the same music that we heard on their debut effort delivered more than ten years ago.
Those who are following the progressions of Godsmack and have a good knowing of their previous albums will be quick to find the main difference between The Oracle and the predecessor, IV. The material of the former is equally good. It is difficult to draw the line between the hits and obvious fillers that only serve to drag the duration of the record. IV had gorgeous pieces here and awfully boring stuff there. A description like this can not be given to The Oracle. The album’s opening track, Cryin’ Like A Bitch, just like any good number one of a good rock record, is aggressive, powerful and moderately tuneful. The same qualities, albeit to a lesser degree, are possessed by the following Saints And Sinners, and War And Peace. After that, the musicians give a break to themselves and the listeners as well as they present a half-ballad song Love-Hate-Sex-Pain, pretty thoughtful and sad piece. The Oracle’s only apparent minus is the dragged out self-titled instrumental track. Godsmack leave us for too long without hearing the vocals, the band’s strongest side. After all, writing voiceless material is not for Godsmack. Among the rest of the tracks, you are likely to especially enjoy Good Day To Die, sounding as if it was penned for or by Metallica, and the galloping Devil’s Swing.
There is no point waiting for experimentations from Godsmack. While some performers are loved for regular modifying their sounding, Godsmack are loved for stability. The band’s own discography includes five studio albums with only the level of performing skills as a difference. In the meantime, the skills of the musicians did grow since the release of the debut effort. The Oracle demonstrates the next to perfect balance between the heaviness and melodiousness. Godsmack focused on playing not long songs that last four minutes. This time is enough for them to smash the listeners with the waves of guitar riffs, catch them with a unsophisticated melody and stun with the variegated vocals. The Oracle is just hard rock, without anything extra, unneeded philosophizing, gigantic solos and long dull intros. This simplicity is the key to success. Godsmack fans wanted to hear this very music on their new album, and The Oracle gave them exactly what they expected.
The Oracle
IV
Slipway Fires 2008
Certainly all the members of Razorlight demonstrate significant improvement on Slipway Fires of both matched playing and the faultless combination of instrumental background and the vocal parts
