Eric Pellegrini - Volume I

Eric Pellegrini - Volume I

A Guitar Player’s Backing Track

What happens when you have music that is serviceable while simultaneously uninspired? If “Volume I” is any indication, then the result is surprisingly disappointing.

“Volume I” suffers primarily because Eric Pellegrini's songwriting is almost solely guitar oriented. However, this album is not a vanity piece. Rather, it is a genuine effort at balanced melodic death metal which fails to manifest itself as such because Pellegrini develops songs only through the instrument with which he is most familiar, the guitar. As metal is generally very guitar oriented, this makes for an inoffensive album, but one that is substantially flawed and derivative. While the drums, vocals, bass, and even rhythm guitar all sound passable; they do very little for the music other than serve as an enervated accompaniment.

This instruments-as-background-sounds problem exists even on the final outro, where one would expect the sense of direction on the album to be at its height. Instead, “The World is A Stage” features fine albeit programmed drums, acting as a mere accompaniment. It feels like there is no person behind the drums, no emotion even. We have various beats and fills that are there just without purpose other than making it sound finished. Instead of being slightly off in this respect and raising the question of whether a real drummer would do this, it screams loudly that no drummer would do this. “Volume I” is like this for much of its duration, and it isn't limited to the drumming. While nothing in the instrumentation crosses over into the realm of sounding overly offensive or bad in of itself, a real harm is still done because of how mechanical, routine, and predictable this backing-track style makes the album.

The exception is of course the guitar work and it is here that the album is at its strongest. Still, Pellegrini adheres conservatively to the scènes à faire of melodic death metal. Some chugged riffs, some harmonizing, some melodic tremolo riffing. Without being a backdrop like other aspects of the music, the guitars are still very predictable and routine with only rare signs of personal flair. Consequently, the album’s zenith is still a point far from excellence, which is important to consider because of how lifeless the remainder of the instruments are.

In the solos, you can hear this all quite clearly, they are unimaginative yet competently played. The first half of the solo on “Discrepancy” isn’t far off from a guitar player practicing scales over a metronome. Some arpeggios also come in, as expected, but with a tinge of neoclassical influence showing some of that personal flair. This is a sign that Pellegrini is creatively trapped in the confines of melodic death metal. For example, the best and most creative bit of the album is the clean section in “Discrepancy” where we get nice neoclassical melodic layering. An earlier example is in “The Black Feathered Vixen” with a similarly influenced clean section that is a bit sloppy, but still one of the album’s high points.

While competent in the vocal department tonally, Pellegrini's delivery fails for feeling emotionally blank and constrained by the guitar melodies. The whispered style on “Ringmaster” and various flirtations with double tracking fail to improve this problem. The raspy style of vocals are very pedestrian for this kind of death metal, and it appears that Pellegrini can effortlessly maintain that sound. Unfortunately it sounds like he phoned it in. Moreover, the fact that the vocals are more intelligible than in most death metal is an enormous disservice here because it draws attention to the incessantly exasperating lyrics. To understate the problem, the lyrics are the weakest element on this album. It absolutely detracts from the music when you hear lines like: “I refuse to lie, I will keep my wits about me” “I fucking hate, you ripped my heart apart” and “I, want you back, in my life, come to me, mi amore.”

In essence, “Volume I” serves more as backing sounds for Pellegrini to play guitar over than as something meant to be listened to as an album. This would have been fine, were it not for the problem that the backing music supports some really generic guitar work.

Links:
Bandcamp - http://ericpellegrini.bandcamp.com/
Metal Archives - http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Eric_Pellegrini/3540330570 
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EricPHeavyMetal?sk=app_2405167945