Waking The Dead
The Clay People (formerly just plain Clay People, now adding THE) have changed a bit over the years. They had a more industrial sound back in the day before going down the hard rock route. Now 9 years since their last album, they once again try a hard rock style on their latest album, Waking The Dead.
You won’t find a good vocal range or even good metal screaming here. The lead singer, Daniel Neet, has kind of a raspy voice almost like Ryan McCombs of SOiL and Drowning Pool fame but with less power behind it to really blow your socks off.
Cheesy sing-along lyrics like Na Na Na Na, Whoa Oh Oh Oh, or even Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah are mixed into some otherwise cool sounding melodies. Not to mention the occasional weird sampled sound added into the music that seems out of place if they’re trying to be more of a rock band. I get that they’re trying to do the haunting vocals with spooky sounding songs but they just don’t fully pull it off.
The positives are few and far between. You’ll get a song that really gets you pumped up, like the opening track ‘Supersonic Overdrive’, and then an oddly placed slow song, like ‘When Heavens Fall’, that sounds like it is an attempt to be on modern rock radio. Maybe that was actually the point but I don’t think its going to work out. The vocals just don’t do it for me on Waking The Dead and aren’t strong enough to carry this album.
Vocals aside, if I did have to applaud them on one thing, it’s the music. It sounds tight with some pretty badass sounding drumming popping them up a point…. which unfortunately is the only point. The vocals just ruin it for me.
