Sometimes I just don’t know how to curb my enthusiasm. When I received When You Were Shouting at the Devil…We Were At League with Satan from Canadian fun metallers Zimmers Hole I almost immediately wanted to hand out the maximum score. After all I have seen them live a couple of times. They really have a fun show, at least if you understand and appreciate the humour. And with members of Strapping Young Lad involved you almost can’t go wrong. But my instinct warned me a little bit and listened to it more often before passing final judgement.

 

Now I know that these guys don’t take it too seriously, but their approach is quite the opposite. It isn’t like they are like Bad News or anything. Those British dudes made the music total crap. I remember that they totally fucked up ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by completely playing it out of tune. Not so with Zimmers Hole. Because the members are real metal fans themselves, they know what they are doing. They perform at top notch level. Yes, they mock a band in every song, but they play it in such a way you feel as if the original band is performing. The song ‘1312’ sound like it is performed by Slayer and ‘What’s My Name…Evil!’ is just as if Judas Priest is having a bit of fun. And there are numerous hints towards other bands: ‘Flight of the Knight Bat’ which reminds of Deep Purple and of course the title track. For those who don’t know which bands are meant, it’s Mötley Crüe and Venom.

 

So all in all, production is great, the songs are performed well. Because of the aforementioned approach of this CD every song has its own sound. It covers a wide spectrum of what modern metal sounds like today, which is great. The downside is that it feels like I’m listening to a sampler album of a record company. And when you hear a joke too often it takes away the fun. Such as this album, I can’t listen to it very often. And I’m glad I didn’t immediately review the album. I would have given the album a higher credit than it deserves. I guess I learned to curb my enthusiasm.