The Destructors – In Memoriam, out now on download only

Skulls are pretty genre specific; if you see one on a cover of an album you can be pretty sure about what you’re getting into. In the case of Peterborough natives The Destructors, the flaming skull and the backdrop of graves on their new album ‘In Memoriam’, both makes the 13 year old metal/punk fan in me go ‘Holy shit that’s awesome’, and also removes the necessity of actually listening to the thing. If you’re now imagining what the album sounds like based on that description of the album cover, you’ve just saved yourself the price of a CD (well done you!)

The physical version of the album is being released for one day only, Remembrance Day, and as such the message of this album is basically ‘War isn’t very nice’, with The Destructors creating strong imagery only through sheer repetition. Virtually every song on this album features the phrase ‘mud, blood and death’ in some variation, and this just renders the words meaningless by the time album closer ‘Body Bags’ ends.
And it’s not just the lyrics that are repetitive. The Destructors are basically capable of two types of song: a dark, metal infused 70’s style punk rock one; and a heavier version of 70’s style punk rock. That’s it. And while the former suits the lyrical content, the latter makes the lyrics sound almost comical at times. The track ‘Soldier Boy’ for example opens with the line ‘I’m sorry to say your son is dead, the Hun bullet went straight through his head’, over this sort of jaunty drum beat which just seems completely out of place.

It seems strange that while The Destructors have dedicated a whole album towards the First World War, there’s barely any commentary on it beyond ‘Actually, as it turns out, this war’s not much fun’, and this is unfortunate because for a style of music that’s notoriously samey, the First World War is the sort of lyrical theme that could have made this album unique; however the repetition and the unaffecting vocal delivery also remove the emotional impact of any of these songs, and you’re left with the feeling that instead of listening to this, you could just as well not be listening to this.

This being said, The Destructors strike me as a band that would be more suited to a live setting, performing to people who were around in the 1970’s and miss those live shows, and this does give the band a specific audience. It’s just that it’s a small one. And I’m not in it.

Tom Challen

his article has been reproduced the Deputy-Editor Design from Concourse 2011/12. The original author is created above.