Dragonforce - Ultra Beatdown

Nearly ten years old in the scene, Dragonforce released their fourth studio album Ultra Beatdown in august 2008. The album isn’t very much different from any of the band’s previous works. The band has not lost their penchant for playing at breakneck speeds, which has both its advantages and shortcomings. Yet the band hasn’t been as excessively adamant regarding the velocity of the tracks than they were on their earlier works. 

For a band that became famous for playing what no other band was able to play, and playing faster than any other band around, it is hard to imagine them letting go of their strategy to success anytime soon. But, anything done in excess becomes obsolete very fast, and unless there is a large deviation from the norm people are bound to get bored. Unfortunately this is exactly the case.

Initially the band’s approach to music, with the inclusion of the videogame sound seemed exciting and drew a lot of attention. But, the band has definitely overdone it and the end result is at times painful. In spite of the band tweaking the album with some new bends, such as leaning to a more traditional metal sound on some of the rhythm sections and playing more soulful solos, there is still a lot of excessiveness in the album which can only be termed as futile. Yes the band is technically outstanding in all departments but for a good album one needs more than that.

Ironically enough, the band sounds much better when they leave their faithful pals Mario and Donkey Kong behind, and go for a more old school sound, seen on tracks such as ‘Strike of the Ninja’ and ‘A Flame for Freedom’. Usually on Dragonforce tracks, it is easy to neglect the vocalist in the midst of the commotion, but on ‘A Flame for Fredoom’ and the raging ‘Inside The Winter Storm’ he shines out by not jittering a bit, even at a very high pitch. The only noticeable occasion where the gaming influence is recreated with great effect is the funky intro to the song ‘Scars of Yesterday’.

Guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman as expected have performed up to the mark, but that would be speaking again only from a mechanical aspect. As in they have arrived and filled their quota of notes, but both of them are lacking a bit in terms of creativity. Even though what they are playing is admirably fancy, but the listener gets the same feeling time and again that its nothing new but merely the same medicine in a new capsule.

For a band that’s capable of playing with a robot like precision (in the studio at least) it would be a shame to see the band fall into the canon of irrelevance. Instead the band should get their act together and edit out the unwanted parts that only cramp up the band’s music, and lessen the quality of direction.

Ultra Beatdown is a weak attempt to reach that well customized sound, but it’s an attempt nonetheless. The album is not the best album the band has come out with it, but it might just be remembered as being the first step taken by the band in achieving it’s ideal set of combinations.