Diamonds In The Rough | The Underdog Rises

Introduction:

Of all the A7X albums, who knew that one of the most exciting would be the Live one. Live In The LBC is a phenomenal live album, one of the best there is. But attatched to that live album is something far more odd, an album of B-Sides and songs thrown out of the Self-Titled recording process. Yet, there is something inherently alluring about this. An album not known by 90% of the fanbase (Granted, that also describes the first two records), an album not on streaming services, an album impossible to get on Vinyl these days as well. Without further ado, here's the last hurdle before a longer break (More on that at the end of the review), this is Diamonds In The Rough.

Analysis:

For the drums, bass, and guitars, most of what I said about S/T still applies. Except somehow, moreso. The drums are heavier and faster, the bass is chunkier and more complex, and there's some really great riffs throughout most of the songs, unlike S/T. The vocals are better as well, with Matt finally having reached the level of vocals seen later on in Nightmare and Hail To The King. But on top of that, the production is better than S/T, everything is both clearer and rawer at the same time. I can also hear the bass guitar here better than all the previous albums minus COE (In which I stand corrected on the bass volume, I was listening on terrible speakers as I found out when I got back to my regular system). That's all I really have to say here. From a standpoint of performances with the writing, it's better than S/T. With the writing itself, well...

Track-by-track:

"Demons" is one of their best openers, I like it almost as much as Critical Acclaim if not more. It's heavy, thrashy, and has a great riff. Sounds like a blend of elements of WTF, COE, and S/T. It's the template of what style I wish A7X would go in, perfectly balancing the melody with aggression. "Girl I Know" on the other hand, is just kind of terrible. It has a decent riff (Which makes it better than "Dear God" by default), but the lyrics suck, the melodies aren't particularly memorable, the chorus isn't particularly catchy (There is a reason for this in particular that I'll discuss later), and over all it just feels like a generic radio rock song. Luckily, you'll forget about that song as soon as "Crossroads" comes on. How this song didn't make it onto S/T, I will never know. Everything I said about Demons applies here, but in addition, the lyrics are particularly great. A giant middle finger to both political parties of the U.S., which is even more relevant now that both are making even bigger fools of themselves. Plus, I love Matt's delivery in this song, I wish it got played live every once in a while at the very least.

Now we have the first cover: "Flash Of The Blade" by Iron Maiden. Let me get this out of the way, one of the single greatest Iron Maiden songs ever and my favorite off of Powerslave. And the cover is pretty good. Can't hold a candle to the original of course (We love you Matt, but you're no Bruce Dickinson), but it's a pretty faithful rendition and I love the Rev's vocals in the chorus. Following that is "Until The End", a ballad of some sorts. But unlike the ballads on S/T, this song doesn't suck. In fact it's fantastic, one of their best ballads without a doubt. Great verses, infectious melodies, emotional chorus, and Syn's leads here are some of his best. Sadly, the next song is "Tension". It's an okay song, certainly better than "Girl I Know", but the lyrics are weird, the chorus feels strained, and the riffs aren't very good. The bass guitar is pretty good here, but that goes for the entire album.

Second cover here: "Walk" by Pantera. Also a decent cover, but unlike the Maiden cover I just feel there's something particularly off. A certain gruffness to the entire song, not any specific aspect of it though. Maybe that's just my intense Pantera fanboyism speaking. Probably, okay definitely. Next song on the docket is "The Fight". It's even worse than "Girl I Know", and for most of the same reasons, just feeling generic and cheesy in a bad way. I can't really go into much more detail, it's one of the worst songs they've ever made. And it's followed by the best song on the album, "Dancing Dead". This song is everything "Girl I Know" wished it could be in riffs and melodies. I mentioned that there is a particular reason that song's chorus is lost on me, and it's because "Dancing Dead"'s is very similar, but better in every way. This should've been on the S/T, without a doubt. It's just a fantastic song on every level.

Now are alternate versions of songs from S/T. First up is the CLA mix of "Almost Easy". It's better than the one on S/T. The song sounds so much heavier and more aggressive here, with the vocals being particularly punchy. I wish the entirety of S/T would get this treatment. As for the alternate version of "Afterlife", it's alright. I think it goes both overboard with the orchestral elements but also draws them back too much from the original, since there's more symphonic parts across the song, but in some of the parts in the original that did have the orchestra, this mix takes that away. As well, "Afterlife" is the one song S/T's production worked for, so changing that feels like a mistake.

Ranking:

1. Dancing Dead
2. Crossroads
3. Demons
4. Almost Easy (CLA Mix)
5. Until The End
6. Flash of the Blade
7. Afterlife (Alternate)
8. Walk
9. Tension
10. Girl I Know
11. The Fight

Conclusion:

Looking at how many individual songs I like, and taking into account that 1/3 the songs on this album are either covers or songs that were on S/T, this album is worse as a compilation of songs than S/T. Sure, it never reaches the level of awful of "Dear God", but it also never quite reaches "Critical Acclaim" or ALPOH with the exception of "Dancing Dead". But as a cohesive album, DITR kind of blows S/T out of the water IMO. There's one thing I've been ignoring throughout this review, and that's tone. S/T had no tonal consistency, it felt like songs made by completely different people were shoved onto the same album. DITR by contrast feels much better put together in that regard, the whole album having a more sinister tone to it. It's the kind of atmosphere that, if expanded, can create an album that exists as an experience (More on that with Nightmare). And so, I have to rate DITR higher than S/T as an album for that fact. 6/10.

What could've been:

Imagine if you will, an A7X album that rather than being the S/T, looked like this:

1. Critical Acclaim
2. Afterlife
3. Scream
4. Until The End
5. Demons
6. Dancing Dead
7. Almost Easy (CLA Mix)
8. Brompton Cocktail
9. A Little Piece of Heaven
10. Crossroads

That would've been a truly great album, with those 10 songs, the cream of the crop of both albums put into one. Yet, the band chose otherwise, and sadly, it wouldn't be the first time the band made some bad choices.