Review: Metal Safari - Return to my Blood

If you want Pantera in Japanese, look no farther than Metal Safari. All I can say is “fuck. yes.”. If you’re in the mood for musically diverse pieces, don’t try this. It’s all one headbashing fest after another with some surprises sprinkled in. If you’re about to stick your foot up someone’s ass, use this first. You’ll scare the shit out of someone.

1. The Beginning
2. Return To My Blood
3. Kou*
4. Hell’s Blast
5. Brand New God Pt.1
6. Brand New God Pt.2
7. Unfounded
8. The Lost Actuality*
9. Disgusted
10. Beautiful Murder
11. The Metal Bastard
12. Koushikai

*Kou and The Lost Actuality PV's are messed up because of YouTube. The latter is listenable but the former not so much.

The first track, aptly titled The Beginning, is a track full of acoustics. Well, thanks for stating the obvious. You might have well called this “song” or “music” or “Track 1″. ACOUSTICS! My goodness, after listening to Hell’s Blast I never thought that this band would open with something like this. I expected something soul-crushing, aneurysm bursting, neck straining rock piece. This is a nice surprise and there’s no switch half-way in. I’m almost not sure if this is METAL SAFARI because it’s so unlike them. And for that, I love this band so much right now. It’s nice, experimental, taking risks, and it’s just long enough to keep my attention but not short enough to be crap. It fades out slowly and goes into the next track, which is Return to My Blood. YES, SOME HARD ROCK. It’s a nice contrast to the first track but the guitars somehow match with The Beginning. It’s something almost as jarring as THE MARROW OF A BONE’s beginning but this track is a few seconds shorter than The Beginning. This hard rush of adrenaline is pretty cool and I like the guitars. Describing themselves as a metal band with groove was an apt description. Finesse in guitars, notes that are being hit, drums that aren’t overbearing…this is why I listen to Japanese metal. And let’s not forget the vocalist’s vocal notes. He’s pretty diverse with his vocals and he gets pretty close to what he would consider “singing”.

Kou sounds like throw down with a fear factory chorus thrown in. Put it up there with Hell’s Blast; it’s awesome. The PV doesn’t seem to work right for me, and it sounds nothing like the actual song. I think it’s sped up unintentionally. It’s miles better. And the SOLO….it’s just YES. Kou is definitely the best song on the album.

I TRIED not to like HELL’S BLAST at first. I really did. But for some reason, when this song was playing a smile cracked over my face. I’ve fallen into softer music lately but this song brought me back to the metal side. I don’t know what happened to me but HELL’S BLAST smacked me like a little bitch and said “headbang”. The only disappointment that I have is that the song fizzles out at the end but the last riff tries to save it. Tries, not does. It's still a good listenable track though. The guitars are nice and polished and the beginning with the guitar and bass mixing thing was what got me started. If this were an instrumental, it would kick ass. The vocalist might put some people off that insist that they need digitized “singing” in order to enjoy a song. This is definitely one of the better songs on this album, and I’m listening as I type.

I’m going to smash Brand New God together as one track even though they’re two seperate ones. It comes in where Hell’s Blast left off and it comes from a fade in to a nice riff. The drummer has some funky sense of rhythm here and the vocalist is roaring as usual. Really, only the first track is actually a track, since the second one is barely a minute long. I don’t like this one as much as I liked Hell’s Blast but it’s still a solid song. Well, the first one anyway. I can’t even describe the second as a SONG. The overlaying of the vocals might seem a bit extreme near the end of the first track but it’s nothing too serious. He does roar a lot in this song, I must admit. The first song ends with a fade out and the second song begins with some guitar. It’s not overbearing or loud. I think it might be acoustic but I can’t really tell. He actually sings in this track! It’s a shame this track is so short but it’s alright. I’ll take some diversity over none. The guitars and the singing begin later on in the track but the beginning diversity was enough for me. Wish he didn’t scream out the track -_-.

Unfounded is where the praise starts to fizzle out a bit, for the sole purpose that from here on in to the last track all the songs are headbangers in the same vein. I'm going to sum all the following tracks up in quick succession until Koushikai because until then they all kinda sound the same. Individually, they all sound excellent but when put together it gets monotonous. Unfounded is an excellent track with vocal work that you'll remember. The Lost Actuality is up there with Hell’s Blast for me on this album for “most intense headbanger” and you can view the video so this is even shorter. Disgusted is obviously another headbanger but after the last two tracks it doesn't measure of as well. Beautiful Murder fares a little better than Disgusted and is a solid track but offers a little too much of the same with little to no variation present. The Metal Bastard sums up the succession of headbangers with an excellent riff and a slight change in vocals as well as some funky one-ear guitar play to make it somewhat memorable, so it's the best after The Lost Actuality here.

Koushikai ends off the album and it's the only mid-tempo song on the album, and I use mid-tempo very, very lightly here. It's not balls-to-the-wall metal like the last 5 tracks but it's no Brand New God Part II either. This song gets a nice mention mostly because it exists so the album doesn't end teetering. On it's own, it's a decent song but when placed in the spectrum of the album it acutally benefits more because of it's much-needed inclusion.

Overall, musical variation isn't something Metal Safari is striving for, but I at least hope the next album they're recording experiments with different levels of harshness for it's tracks. I also hope to see the vocalist sing a bit more often. He's got a really nice voice when he chooses to use it. I would also bet anything I could enjoy some of the songs a bit more if I knew the lyrics.

This album gets a 3.5 out of 5.