What?: "A Pale Horse Named Death" are an "American gothic band" [Wikipedia], formed as a solo project for Type O Negative drummer Sal Abruscato. "And Hell Will Follow Me" is their first album.
Why?: I read a positive review of the album in either Metal Hammer or Classic Rock and checked out YouTube to hear some tracks. I heard "Die Alone" and was interested by the Alice In Chains vibe and saxaphone solo.
Tell me more!: My first listen to the album was disappointing. The music, which is very 90s influenced and has a great doom vibe, is generally great, but the vocals, and especially the lyrics, instantly rubbed me the wrong way, and after repeated listens (at least six), I'm still not sold.
The singing style, and album production, mean the lyrics are right up in your face, making them quite difficult to ignore. They are, in my humble opinion, some of the most clichéd depressive lyrics I've ever had to listen to. I'm sure I have hundreds of albums with worse lyrics, but production, or an inability to enunciate, or distractingly awesome music, have all conspired to prevent them being a problem. Not so on this album...
In fact, I usually pride myself on ignoring lyrics. I love a good obscure pointless lyrics as long as the melody and syllables are nice. Further, the songs on here are clearly coming from a very personal place, so while they are clichéd, they're in all likelihood very real.
Which is why I've given this album so many listens, trying to like it, but every time one of the particularly nausea inducing songs comes on ("Pill Head", "Heroin Train"), I struggle to avoid the skip button.
The last song, "Die Alone", is the song which initially interested me, and in isolation it's pretty good, especially the sax solo (by Lou Reed's saxophonist Ulrich Krieger). But after listening to 12 other songs it loses it's shine.
I've got to say I'm almost alone in my feelings. Reviews on the net for this album are generally very positive. I want to agree, but I just don't.
4/10: "Die Alone" is good in isolation, but a whole album of it is just too much. Saxophone solos are to be encouraged.
[Saying "clichéd" a lot is clichéd.]