Cold Night For Alligators: Course Of Events

Scandic techies not quite ready to tip the scales

Cold night for alligators

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With that moniker you’d expect these Danes’ debut album to pack plenty of bite and aggression, and they certainly possess the requisite savagery.

Unfortunately what they lack is the quiet, stalking dynamism of an attacking reptile. Opener Considering Catastrophy rides along on a polyrhythmic low-end riff that could crush buildings, with sharp bursts of techy widdling, but the mood, pace and feel of the album barely changes until fourth track, Inconsistent. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly unremarkable mix of forced clean vocals, ho-hum staccato guitar licks and those omnipresent Dillinger-esque jazzy freak-outs.

In fact, the only time CNFA truly hit on something that makes your ears prick up is the near-10-minute journey of Querencia, which is challenging and multi-layered enough to appeal to fans of Between The Buried And Me.

But for the rest of the album, it’s very much a case of a band to be filed alongside the rest of the also-rans within the tech-metal scene.

Stephen Hill

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.