Band:	Destrage
Album:	The King Is Fat'N'Old
Style:	Melodic death metal, Metalcore
Release date:	October 2010

01. Double Yeah
02. Twice The Price
03. Jade's Place
04. Neverending Mary
05. Back Door Epoque
06. Smell You Later Fishy Bitch
07. Collateral Pleasure
08. Home Made Chili Delicious Italian Beef
09. Tip Of The Day
10. Panda Vs Koala
11. Wayout

Somehow, when labels or people use the moniker 'Modern Metal' to define an album I get a bit nervous, as it's often used to describe some kind of generic metalcore/thrash/indus stuff. When I first encountered this King Is Fat'n'Old, Destrage's second album, it was labeled this way. More precisely, 'Alternative modern metal'.
Alternative, huh? Maybe there's hope for this one, then.

And there is, for sure. From the quite classical opener "Double Yeah" to the very end, we're in for a good ride! While the overall musical roots are more metalcore than anything, The King Is Fat'n'Old is a catchy and quite varied album, with quite a lot of rock'n'roll energy and groove.
Metalcore? Yeah, but not only your usual breakdown/clean vocals style. There are breakdowns, there are harsh vocals, clean ones too, but the songwriting is quite chaotic and not always user-friendly, while still being catchy. Make no mistake, this is a quality! The whole stuff can be quite technical at times (not unlike Protest The Hero or similar bands, albeit in a different way), but the real strength of this album is its diversity. Between the aggressive metalcore of "Smell You Later Fishy Bitch" (yeah, that's the name of the song - for real) and the rock'n'roll-infused fun of "Jade's Place", there are some nice acoustic guitars ("Neverending Mary"), awesome guitar lines ("Collateral Pleasure"), good melodic moments ("Back Door Epoque"), funny and/or stupid stuff ("Home Made Chili Delicious Italian Beef", "Panda vs Koala") and also some crazy stuff ("Wayout"). Pretty varied indeed!

But this is a part of this album's weakness, too. Destrage are no Shaolin Death Squad... Somehow it seems they took all they loved in metal and put it together in a kind of mish-mash, there's no real cohesiveness, but it's not like they were doing wildly different things either. Thankfully the songwriting is good enough to allow us to overlook this minor flaw.
There's nothing to complain with either the production or the musicianship. The sound is clean and powerful, but not cold or crushing the dynamics of the music. And all the stuff is really well played, with a special mention to the guitars, at the same time technical and catchy. The vocals, whether extreme (hardcore shouts or melodeath grunts) or clean, are good, varied and enjoyable too.

So, while this album is neither perfect nor awesome, it is really good and quite original - more than most in this style for sure. Destrage deserve a better recognition in the modern metal / metalcore scene, for this is a catchy, fun and well played release!