Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Bad Wolves - N.A.T.I.O.N. (2019)

Sometimes curiosity gets the better of us all.  Just how bad does an avocado taste?  Is Keeping Up With the Kardashians all that bad a TV show?  What's in that hole that's too dark for me to see into but just big enough to get my hand in?  Whether you have come away from such ventures with a foul taste in your mouth, a compelling wish to have your eyes cleansed with a powerwasher or are simply looking for a donor for a hand transplant, it is safe to say that curiosity does not alway pay dividends.  My main stings come from putting together The Pit clan monthly playlists and as my curiosity in groove metal expands I find myself straying into territory I am not usually known to frequent.  On balance, and to prove that curiosity can work really well my recent discovery of A Life Once Lost's Hunter album was a great success, and although you will see from the star rating that N.A.T.I.O.N. does not fare anywhere near as well I must still flag the limited appeal of the record that has kept me coming back to it for the past four weeks or so.

Playing as a bastardised form of alternative metal with some groove and core elements slung in, this record certainly has its share of peaks and troughs.  The obvious single fodder of Killing Me Slowly, Sober and Learn To Walk Again possess that skin irritant level infectiousness that can cause the more extreme metal fan to scratch several layers from their skin.  Yet the latter of those three is actually may favourite song on the whole album and is a killer track to workout to with a couple of dumbells in your hands.  Likewise, the catchy lines of No Messiah imprint enough of a weighty impression on me to include that on my functional strength training playlist also.  When allowed to take centre stage, the groove metal riffs on the album give a real sense of an act with some "oomph" behind them.  As strong as any other plyers in the groove metal field as this appears to make them, these moments are all too often shortlived though and the main issue that I have with N.A.T.I.O.N. starts to take hold of my listening experience.

There seems an obvious and consistent attempt to sound commercial and mainstream on the album as we get bogged down in ballads (Better Off This Way, Sober) or the mindlessly compressed chaos such as Foe or Friend or The Consumerist that genuinely hurt my brain to listen to. Vocally, the album ranges from some near drawling modern country style through to scathing screams with the main emphasis being on the former as the songs seem to focus with a heavy reliance on emotion driving the messaging. With competent yet never remarkable drumming and a similar description can easily be applied to the guitars, N.A.T.I.O.N. soon becomes more of a drain than a draw.