Roadrunner "Ultra Beatdown" - DragonForce

More than meets the ear on this one. Dragonforce don't merely go for the all-out-dragsters-of-sound-smashing that was "Inhuman Rampage" but actually toss in a few more progressive spices into the Steve Vai via Styx mush via Iron Slayer soup and actually (gasp!) slow down for a minute or two to flex and fuck with your head.
Dragonforce had a pretty monumental task in front of 'em on elpee number four. They were following up a record that didn't merely put them on the map but blasted em into the consciousness of any eight to eighty year old that picked up that plastic geetar and went for it on "Guitar Hero". "Through The Fire and The Flames" was the song to beat. C'mon! The shit was on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" fer cryin' out loud!
Let's put it this way: a song written by "Madman" Sam Totman had become a cultural phenom. Very scary indeed!
So it was back to Herman Li's London home studio (with some tracking down the street at Thin Ice Studios courtesy of Threshold's Karl Groom) to begin months and months of work of work on "Ultra Beatdown". Without giving away too many trade secrets, let's just say that Dragonforce just doesn't write songs. They build 'em from the ground up. A basic idea will never resemble the song in it's finished form.
There were songs that you would hear 50% finished that you'd think would be key tracks on the album. Or sexy space trucker throwaways that became key tracks like opener "Heroes of Our Time".
To say that the Dragonforce writing method is unorthodox is to put it mildly.
Where "Inhuman Rampage" was an exercise in distancing themselves from trad power metal; "Ultra Beatdown" is the sound of Dragonforce spreading their wings and creating a sound all their own. Purists be damned!
A song like "Reasons to Live" with its combination of blast beats, progressive guitar work and ZP Theart's soaring vocals is about as strange and fucking cool as it gets. Pure Dragonforce. The beauty of it all is that as experimental as some of the Vadim's synth-play and Herman's guitar-burn gets, songs never lose their focus. "The Last Journey Home" is appropriately titled; sounding like the bastard child of Steve Perry and a Euro Vision song championship. But fuck, it rocks!
Here's the deal with Dragonforce. Like it or not, they're a mutant; as extreme as Mr. Bungle or Dillinger but grasping at melody and pomp versus annihilation and noise. And sure, there's the requisite ballad: "A Flame For Freedom" which some choose to sit out. Understandable.
I'm not sure if 99.9 percent of the plastic geetar wielders will ever get it. Dragonforce is one of the most truly imaginative and completely twisted bands on the planet.
You probably still don't get it. Do ya?