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ANIMALIZE
Meat We’re Made Of

Dying Victims Productions (2022)
Rating: 7.5/10

Someone described this to me as “updated retro”, and that seems rather apt. Animalize is a French heavy metal act with their wristbands firmly dipped in the 80s and, dare I say it, 90s.

With its simple yet effective album cover, Meat We’re Made Of comes out of the blocks with bristling energy, harkening back to the mid 80s-style of rampant, fiery aesthetics.

Most impressive on this nine-track effort is the lead work. The vocals, however, may take a short while to get used to but there is something charming about their occasional warbles into tuneless realms. Even so, this is a record that comes equipped with cannons, flamethrowers and smoke machines.

The band produce some great melodies with the likes of ‘Back From Sematary’ and the gloriously cheesy ‘Saturday Night Witchcraft’, suggesting these guys can still rock hard in spite of the comedic elements.

A majority of the tracks on offer are delivered with speed, with ‘Eternal Second’ being one of the best examples. But then you get some extremely melodic tracks too; the poppy ‘The Witch You Are’, the punky ‘Pigs From Outer Space’, and the mid-tempo ‘Escorte Funèbre’ showcase the variety within the band’s arsenal.

To an extent, Meat We’re Made Of is quite an unpredictable opus with some unusual vocal passages, but all the while it remains metallic and unorthodox, almost coming across like a heavy metal Dead Kennedys!

It’s nice to come face to face with a record that has a twisted charm to its layers, and Animalize could well be the new cult name on the block if you like your heavy metal brimming with vigour yet boasting a number of quirks.

Neil Arnold

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