How did I miss the eponymous debut album by Killer Be Killed back in 2014? The heavy metal supergroup consists of Max Cavalera (Soulfly, Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy), Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan), Troy Sanders (Mastodon) and Ben Koller (Converge). A blend of artists of that quality can only lead to a terrific album, or garbage stew. Nothing in-between. Let’s see what we have with their second album release Reluctant Hero.
You can smell the influence of the members respective bands all over this album. All three guitar and bass players share vocal duties, switching back and forth during each song. This could spell unlistenable mayhem. However the songs shift in style many time during each song, fitting in with each vocalist whilst they sing. Rather than feeling disjointed, this actually greatly helps the feel of each song and brings out the best in each writing style.
The album is rooted on a typical Mastodon style of contemporary progressive metal sound, which helps gel the songs together and the disjointed nature of progressive metal helps the fleeting style shifts feel more at home together.
They could have played it safe, taken a single style and ran with it for the whole album. Or tried to mix all the genres together at the same time and stuck to it. Whilst in theory switching back and forth mid song all the time seems a recipe for disaster, in this case it works perfectly and is exactly what makes Reluctant Hero interesting and take advantage of what made each of their individual bands so popular.
Straight from the off, Deconstructing Self-Destruction hits you with Greg and Max alternating aggressive, powerful vocals over some chugging triplets and you know you’re in for a headbanging good time.
Troy and Greg employ similar vocal styles, so it only leaves 2 differing vocal styles, alongside Max‘s trademark scowl. This greatly helps the flow of the songs. Left of Centre first introduces the complex rhythm patterns Mastodon and Dillinger are known for. Inner Calm from Outer Storms could be straight off a Cavalera Conspiracy album. From there on it’s very much more of the same. The closing title track is an end of album ballad done perfectly. Should we have expected any less from the talent on offer?
Reluctant Hero is an album that pushes the boundaries of varying styles of heavy metal to huge success. So often supergroups can be as satisfying as finding out they were just dreaming all along. However this time it is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
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