Review: Lycaon - RED RUM

I’ve spent many an hour trying to figure out what the hell the cover is supposed to be. Eventually, I just settled on the fact that Jack Nicholson’s face was rammed at a million miles an hour into one of the walls in Sotha Sil’s Clockwork City in Mournhold and Lycaon took a picture before they called in Almalexia to mop the wall up. Yes, that was an epic Morrowind reference. (Given that the name of this single is called [RED RUM], a The Shining joke was bound to pop up in here somewhere). Let’s get this review done with, eh?

01. Grow
02. RED RUM
03. The Death Game
04. 「琥珀彩」～コハクイロ～ (Kohakuiro)

Grow	How about no? Sounds like a cross between an orgasm on a telephone for the first few seconds, until it switches in to what sounds like an self-help audio book by Stephen Hawking. The words are in perfect English and have nothing to do with anything. Some guitars enter the mix and the creepy pedophile from before laughs and ruins what little this track had going for it. What exactly does Lycaon want us to grow? Wait, I don't want to find out...	3/10
Red Rum	A fan-favorite from what I can gather on all Lycaon fans that I can find, Red Rum isn’t anything revolutionary but all of its parts work together well. Even though the harsh vocals during the verses could use work, where Red Rum stands out is the chorus, which manages to be distinctive without suffering from suckin’ on a lollipop syndrome. That is good. I do feel the guitars could be crisper in many parts and the drums border on the verge of annoying, and RED RUM doesn’t pull me in all that much. A decent track, but not going to be one my favorites.	7/10
The Death Game	My personal favorite on this track, it starts off with a simple, generic, but effective riff that continues throughout this song. They spice it up with some acoustic work but everything is so indies-level production it’s barely worth mentioning (the bass crawls up somewhere in the track and it’s surprising to hear it because the point where it comes up suits it well). The breakdown is also something I could have sworn I heard somewhere, and if I did I’m not too surprised. A re-recording of this song in a few years would be awesome. Some singing points in the song, especially at 2:14, stick in my head simply because Lycaon stumbled upon some awesome. The chorus is also pretty badass, even when you don’t compare it to other Lycaon tracks.	9/10
「琥珀彩」～コハクイロ～	Kohakuiro is such a dick-tease. It starts off like it’s going to be the hardest piece here and then it goes all soft and acoustic and stays that way throughout. I hate hard openings on soft tracks; they get me all excited just to find out it was a load of foreplay. The last twenty seconds, although nothing overly hard, was a nice way to end the track (and thankfully, this song doesn’t end in a lame fade-out). Despite that, a softer track was in order here and although it’s still rough around the edges it delivers. The chorus reaches down into the bag of annoying and stereotypical when he tries to go up, but the nice solo erases some of that nasty taste in my mouth when it pops up. The whole transition between soft-solo-soft is also pretty sweet and sounds almost professional – something most VK bands can’t manage to do these days.	8/10

At least it was a better, all-around package than chains of collar, in that we get four songs instead of three and none of them stole a riff from a SoaD song and didn't bother to change up too much. Calling Lycaon inventive is a stretch of the imagination but at least this CD was all around refreshing.

Recommended:

The Death Game

Score: 68%