LEAGUE OF DISTORTION – Galvanize

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6.5

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You know the first Matrix film, when the protagonist has a déjà vu seeing the same cat twice? Here, this is the effect I felt after listening to “Galvanize”, the new League Of Distortion album.
For the uninitiated, League Of Distortion are a German band that appeared on the metal scene – mainly Teutonic – in 2022 with their first album of the same name which was followed, in the following two years, by a fair number of opening concerts for quite famous groups (like Kamelot) and a couple of tours that made them known quite widely in Germany.
The metal proposed by the band is a mix of electronic music and djent interspersed with melodic openings designed to create catchy refrains easily digestible by the masses, on which the voice – mainly dirty and scratched – of singer Anna Brunner (Exit Eden) expands .
“Galvanize”, as previously described, sounds exactly like the first album, to the point of seeming like a B-side. On the purely musical side, the stylistic features followed are the same as the previous album, the same structures of the riffs (“Chainsaw”), the same explosions of anger expressed by the singer's voice (“Suck My Blood”) and the same electro-influences. techno music designed to make the song come together, as if we were in a Berlin nightclub.
Analyzing the pieces individually, we certainly notice some songs worthy of attention such as “My Hate Will Go On” which vaguely refers to the rhythms of the Reverend Marilyn Manson in “The Beautiful People”, or “What's Wrong With Her”, the only truly interesting piece of the album, capable of painting a crazy and psychotic musical portrait, mixing heavy sounds with an almost jazz substrate, and then exploding in a techno interlude that makes everything unexpected and decidedly particular; particular exactly like the hip-hop rhythms that define “Anti Hero”, which also timidly emerges among the ten very short (average duration three and a half minutes) tracks proposed by the band.
Let's be clear, “Galvanize” is not a bad album and, honestly, it doesn't struggle to achieve a full pass, especially from a technical-executive point of view: after several listens, however, it is difficult to notice the growth of a team that, judging by his young age, he should be in the midst of creative development.
We certainly realize that the music market today tends to reward quantity more than quality, however, listening to the songs, one has the constant impression that the Germans could have skipped this release straight away and focused on creating a more mature work. and inspired, instead of following the imperishable formula of 'the winning team doesn't change'.