Band:	El Caco
Album:	Hatred, Love & Diagrams
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	January 27, 2012
A review by:	Doc G.

01. After I'm Gone
02. Hatred
03. Autopsy
04. Equivalence
05. Go Forward
06. Confessions
07. Sixty To Zero
08. Skeleton
09. She Said
10. Disconnect

Just because Tool only release an album once in a blue moon, doesn't mean you can't dig on some very similar tunes in the meantime. Not strictly a Tool knock off, but damn close enough to have an incredibly accessible appeal, especially to fans of those heavy prog-rock legends.

It's a swaggering, dark prog rock built with a lot of attention to detail. It's emotional and passionate, yet there is still a cold sort of feeling that gives it a sense of despair. Hatred, Love & Diagrams is sort of a nice fence where technical prowess meets raw emotion. More times than not, bands tend to swing too far in one direction or another; some personal message outweighing songwriting, or too much showy technique, and no emotion. El Caco definitely manage to not only balance out these two aspects, but use each to enhance the other. The transfer from massive riff to massive riff is a nice display of skill behind the guitars & bass, but the champion of this album is definitely drummer Fredrik Wallumrød, who swings from basic rock jams to complicated drum patterns with controlled precision, even while the music is at it's mellowest. The riffs have that massive appeal, almost sounding like a Tool-meets-Pelican sort of hybrid, but everything is enhanced by the desperation behind the vocals to give it that emotional edge.

Hatred, Love & Diagrams quite a nice little prog album, for sure, but it isn't quite a home-run. For one, the vocals do have a tendency to get a bit grating by the end, a bit squeeky you could say. Their main issue seems to lie in the same ballpark as their obvious musical mentors; the massive riffs which lie in-between each of the high points sound incredible at first, but their repetition in almost every track gives the album a very samey feel by the end.

Hatred, Love & Diagrams is a nice, slightly more simplistic, radio-friendly take on prog, but engaging enough to let yourself drift off into.