Mushroomhead returns this 2020 with “A Wonderful Life", His eighth full-length album and the first without the presence of Jeffry Nothing, who during the entire career of the band had been in charge of the clean voices until his departure in 2018 on not very good terms. It is also the first with the absence of Tom Schmitz, who was the master of keyboards from the beginning of the band until 2015.
The album opens very well with “A Requiem For Tomorrow ”, in which an entrance with sacred sounds detonates a track absolutely old school style of Mushroomhead. “Madness WithinIt has a dark but burlesque sound much closer to what it did Marilyn Manson at the peak of his career, with a catchy chorus and to sing live over and over again. Next comes the first single "Seen It All ”, perhaps one of the most basic and somewhat linear themes of the work, and then comes "The Heresy”Which is the second single from this album, and has the strong presence of the female voice of Jackie Laponza as a banner: a track much darker and more dramatic that was very well received by critics in this new evolution of Mushroomhead.
The nightmarish circus sound that has marked the band's career for years is immediately present in “What A Shame”And the macabre piano of "Pulse". Again Laponza has a great role in this last theme and the alternation with the voice of J Mann and the new singer Steve Rauckhorst coupled with the more commercial sound of the song, it undoubtedly makes me compare it to what bands like Lacuna Coil: it will be necessary to see how the fans of the band take this evolution. In "Carry On"The formula is repeated, although at times the rap of Steve it is much more marked, reminding us of past themes of the group; if they told me that it's a new topic of Cristina Scabbia and company, at first hearing they could make me doubt the similarity with that style. "The Time Has Come" he breaks out of that style and picks up that sound of whispering darkness and a guttural presence of J Mann well alternated, of the best songs so far without a doubt.
We are now at the middle of the job (counting the "bonus tracks") E "11th Hour" we can consider it as a twisted ballad and sickly melancholy. Twisted and sick it is also "I am the one", But it is due to the majestic combination of rhythms that really seem soundtrack of a nightmare trip in your brain: another great success in this album without a doubt. "The Flood”Below presents a much more progressive and digestible sound that breaks the rhythm of the album, but those of us who know the career of Mushroomhead we know that these breaks Sublimated melodics are often the hallmark of the house, and this sluggish bump even extends to the next topic.Where The End Begins", That with its seven minutes of duration the truth is that it becomes maddening and what you want is a little more power. The album closes the basic tracklist as it opens: with the presence of the sacred choirs that dismiss the album in the form of a homily inside some temple.
We come to the time of Bonus tracks and this section opens with the instrumental "To The Front"That the only thing that contributes is something like being the intro to the other three themes. As usually happens with the bonus songs, there are some jewels that one wonders why they were not part of the album in their main skeleton, such is the example without a doubt of “Sound of destruction" and Another Ghost that give us a nostalgic blow to the first works of the band. Again, the sacred choirs of "Tearful"They are in charge of now, yes, to close the curtain on this plate.
In summary we could say that although we are facing a typical album of Mushroomhead, There are notable differences with his previous works, particularly in the inclusion of sounds more focused on Gothic metal, leaving his industrial vein much more aside. Jeffrey Nothing if it is strange then even though he was the carrier of the cleanest voices of the group his tone was much sicker and insane, while the incursion of the female voice of Jackie Laponza It gave a much more melodic touch to the group. Perhaps this new twist is not entirely liked by many fans, but it is also true that Mushroomhead It is a band characterized by doing what they want when experimenting with their sounds. Judge for yourself from June 19 that the album is released.
