REV!EW: ARMAGH – EXCLAMATION PO!NT

Armagh release their 3^rd album with a whole new line-up. But is it just Polish metal without the polish?

Armagh hail from Poland, so my first thought when receiving this album to review was ‘why the Dickens are they named after a Northern Ireland province’? There had to be some deep reasoning for this. I thought to myself, ‘I know’, I thought, ‘I’ll drop them an email to ask.’ More of that later.

For this album, Armagh are made up of the following members:

Galin Soulreaper – Guitar and vocals

Tom Cultcommander – Bass

Vikk Vandall – Guitars & backing vocals

Al Atom Smasher – Drums

Mr Soulreaper is the only original band member remaining and the soul survivor (see what I did there?) from the previous album, 2022’s Serpent Storm. The other musicians from that recording, Messrs Bloodhammer, Madman and Exorcist left for divers reasons, moving on to join Imperator, Torpor and (also) Torpor respectively.

So having trawled the Warsaw phone directory for suitably named replacements, Soulreaper and his new chums hit the studio with a view to creating a much more collaborative work than the predominately Soulreaper written Serpent’s Storm.

Doing, as I do, a bit of background work on the bands I review, I took myself off to the world of Youtube to see what I could see, and sure enough there is a really good quality live video of the band in its current line-up performing ‘Into The Fumes of Deutero-Steel’ from the previous album.

The band look very good live. The video was recorded in a small venue with the audience just a few feet away, headbanging like a bunch of merry loons. Watching that video, with its intimate setting, its raw live power and the clearly happy and dedicated fans bouncing about in front of the stage, I was transported back 3000 years to my younger days, where I stood standing in front of bands like Angel Witch, Girlschool, Motörhead and a plethora of my noisy metal heroes at the Marquee club in Wardour street, long before they moved onto the bigger stages and arena of the world.

‘Very good’, I thought, ‘this bodes well. At last, a band that can lay claim to the true meaning of the T in NWOTHM.’

And then I listened to Exclamation Po!nt!

The Review

1 – Rough Edges – The first thing you hear on this album is a good powerful opener. Nice ferocious double bass drums, fast riffing guitars, proper Maiden like stuff. The vocals come in, although it’s hard to really get what he’s singing about. There’s a spell of nice chaotic guitar work and a few changes of pace. As per the video, there’s a proper old school live garage band sound. Soulreaper’s vocals have by turns hints of Ozzy, Hetfield and Steve Zodiac from Vardis. The overall effect is good. It has real promise even though the words themselves are wishy washy and mostly indecipherable. I did wonder if he was singing in Polish but on closer inspection there are some English words occasionally discernible through the muffled mix. Pity about that because this song is otherwise very catchy. There is a slightly jarring lead squeal near the end which makes me think that either the mixing was a bit hurried or that the compression on the MP3 files sent for review isn’t doing the record proper justice. Either way, we can only review what we’re given, can’t we, eh?

2 – Masters of Time – A tidy, chunky bass opens into nice slow guitar riff work. Musically reminiscent of Rush in places, which is great. Clearly there’s some good musicianship on show. The song gets going with some melodic guitar trills. And again, although indecipherable, Soulreaper’s voice sounds Ozzyesque and in keeping with the genre. The song progresses into a solid, heads down no nonsense head banging piece with the double bass drums bapping along well behind the twiddly guitar licks. If anything this song reprises itself a few too many times and could have been a real stormer had it been a bit more compact.

3 – Aftermath – This track has a bit of a classic Maiden sea shanty vibe going on. Nice guitar riffing. I can only imagine the fantastic worlds that Soulreaper is painting lyrically. I can only imagine because once again his muffled mumbling is becoming a clear and disappointing trait of this album and seriously detracts from the enjoyability of the songs.

4 – Between the Sides – Four tracks in and we’ve hit a real low point already with this one. It’s an incoherent mess that sounds like the band members were each given 3 minutes and 39 seconds of studio time and one audio track, and were told to go and invent something. Then it’s as if the whole lot was blindly mixed together by the studio cleaner. The drummer clearly got a double bass pedal for Christmas and is determined to use it at every opportunity, even when the song doesn’t call for it. The foggy vocals don’t fit over the guitars. The whole song is a hotch potch of bad timing, competing noise and a general pile of wobbling horse cobblers. I can’t say anything more positive about it than that. Sorry chaps. Not my cuppa tea.

5 – The Portal – A much more measured pace to begin, with a sweet call and response bit of guitar riffing setting the atmosphere. This is a more intricate track than the previous ones with a lot more interesting guitar work. Structurally a good song that (despite the ubiquitous vocal issues) does much to lay the horrific memories of the previous track to rest.

6 – Rapid Str!de – Another fast paced thunderer. Everyone loves a double kick drum but it sometimes feels like it’s overriding the rest of the track to its detriment. Sometimes less is more, Mr Atom Smasher. Less is more! Notwithstanding that, there are a few enjoyable moments, most notably when the guitars are working together to produce something more akin to the traditional stuff Maiden’s Murray and Smith have always been good at.

7 – This !s New A – This oddly titled track starts with a lovely twiddly, Rushlike opening. It’s probably the most interesting number on the record but again the vocals are too woolly to really appreciate the whole song. There’s a gentle breakdown in the middle which adds a nice bit of variety, and it’s clear on this track that Atom Smasher has more in his arsenal than just the double kick drum he loves so much, although that does make another unwelcome reappearance later on. I realise I haven’t mentioned the bass much so far in this review, but then it’s so low in the mix as to be barely discernible. There are hints of it here in this track though. Overall I think this is my, if not favourite, then perhaps my least unfavourite song on the album. It has more nuance than the rest of the tracks combined and demonstrates that the band are clearly capable of something a bit more interesting.

8 – Enough for Now – Never has a song been more aptly titled. It does benefit from a Fast Eddie era Motörhead style opening that’s quite enjoyable. The one clear standout bit of vocals on the whole album appears in this song. Just a snatch, but it’s there. ‘Something, something, something, something, we don’t fucking care’. Sums it up, I’m afraid. Again the guitar work is the only thing that saves this track from being another incoherent rambling mess. A job it’s just about managed to do throughout the whole album.

Album release 15th March 2024

Buying options:
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, postcard and download code.
– Special edition on blue/green splatter vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, postcard download code and patch.
– CD edition with sticker.

You can pre-order:
www.dyingvictims.com
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/

Conclusion

Of all the albums I’ve ever listened to, this is definitely one of them. I really wanted to like this record but the band, or perhaps more accurately, the mix has made that quite difficult.

I never like to dis others peoples’ artistic endeavours lightly. They put a lot of effort into creating their work and clearly, they think it’s the dog’s danglies. As a listener we can only say we like it, or we don’t like it. You can’t objectively say something is crap. One man’s crap is another man’s wall covering.

Superficially, this record has the potential to be what you think of when NWOTHM is mentioned. Proper early 80s old school. But the muddy mix makes it very hard to understand the lyrics so while it has occasional bursts of that traditional sound it would have been really nice to have the vocals lifted out to a proper Bruce Dickinson clarity, as that’s the main thing that drags the record down throughout. That and the overzealous double kick drum.

On the up side, there are a few moments of quality and musical promise which makes me believe that this band are quite capable of producing something much more listenable in the future. However, I don’t believe Exclamation Po!nt will go down on the anals of history as one to remember.

And while the band has gone to all the trouble of creating these tough sounding persona, they haven’t followed that up with any real personality, there’s no individual rock star charisma on show.

I went from really quite liking the sound on my first listen of the opening track, to really struggling to find positive things to say by the time I’d heard it for the 10^th outing.

I would definitely have appreciated a lyric sheet, for sure.

As to why they’re named after a Northern Ireland province? As stated above, I was going to drop them an email to find out, but to be honest, after listening to this record a dozen times, I find I don’t really care enough any more!