Life Will Kill You by Clawfinger
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Release date : July 2007
Reviewed by Anthony Morgan
Background information
Review
Background information
Life Will Kill You arrives a mere two years after 2005's Hate Yourself With Style, another full length effort from the Swedish Crossover act Clawfinger. Way back in 1988 the band grouped together, the result of fellow music fanatics Zak Tell and Jocke Skog working within the same hospital. 1993 debut Deaf Dumb Blind shifted more than 600, 000 copies worldwide, while other albums which intended to build on this followed. Life Will Kill You was self-produced inside Fear and Loathing Studios in Spanda, Sweden, a studio Clawfinger co-run with fellow friends Meshuggah.
Review
Tell's high octane method of executing vocal lines during the verses shows an admirable ability of mastering the delivery. A rhythmical hook with a close resemblance to Rap music develops, spurring forth a closely knit deck of phonetically charming words which threaten to trip over their respective shoelaces. Thankfully, they fail to do so. The mandatory fistful of topical subjects one comes to expect from the Rap genre and its relations - drugs, lewd women, juvenile bravado - are markedly absent in terms of their non presence. Instead, lyrical musings appoint themselves as the philosophical forebearers of the uncertain future. Social commentary upon current affairs becomes grinded down into an accessible format, welcoming those both with and without demands on how sophisticated they prefer lyrical content.
The Swedish duo possess tuneful ears for commercial viability, crafting several anthemic choruses which are stubbornly drilled into your eternal consciousness. Whether you're travelling via the bus, or driving in the car, you'll find a chorus or two culled from the album swimming through your memory waves. A good or bad thing? That's best for the listener to decide. The chuggering vibes of the rudimentary music also aids in the endeavour of making the material accessible to all comers, simple beats that want you to faintly hum along. It's essentially a Rock N Roll trick used by flocks of many for aeons, a valid tool that serves its purpose in this pursuit.
The majority of Crossover groups tend to delve too far into the realms of experimentation, mixing too much into a dizzy cocktail that never quite seems appropriate. Life Will Kill You can be filed in the cabinet which houses those experimental releases that break the general rule. The bridge between successful experimentation and appalling stupidity is a rather thin one, yet this is a fine rope the duo walk with remarkable ease. Purists of specific Metal subgenres will likely scream blue murder, but those blessed with broader pallettes may take the record for an inaugural spin and cast their verdict.
