Austrian Death Machine
Total Brutal

It’s ironic that I recently rewatched both Terminator movies this weekend (which hold up very well many years later) as I geared up to review this Arnold Schwarzenegger side project from As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis. With Destroy The Runner’s Chad Ackerman providing the surprisingly good Arnie impersonations between songs and Tim Lambesis (along with a multitude of other guests like Jason Suecof and Adam D) providing all the instrumentation and writing, the end result is what you’d expect of a parody album side project involving a metalcore luminary and his pals.

With every song named after one liners from some of Arnold’s movies (namely The Terminator series, Predator, Batman & Robin, Last Action Hero, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Eraser), the songs are all direct, short, fairly standard metalcore with a sterner thrash lean gruff shouts, and Lambesis even boasts that they all have breakdowns and solos, so musically don’t expect anything ground breaking, but it is pretty solid and with the Arnie gimmick, comes together quite well and with some mildly amusing and entertaining results. Lambesis even seems to poke a bit of fun at his full time band as well as the scene as a whole.

After the Governator’s intro, ADM jump right into “Get to the Chopper”, arguably the album’s highlight to get your attention right away, and as the subsequent tracks come and go, it becomes apparent that the tracks seem to mimic the quality of the movies that they are named from. “Rubber Baby Buggy Bumbers”, “Here is Subzero, Now Plain Zero”, “Who is Your Daddy and What Does he Do ” and “Its Not a Tumor” seem to pale next to the likes of “I Am a Cybernetic Organism”, “Come With Me if You want to Live”, “Screw You Benny!” and other standout, “If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It”. That being said though, this isn’t album of the year material as its pretty standard metalcore, and all of the tracks, even some of the in between song skits in involving Arnie (“What its Like to be a Singer at Band Practice”, “Why?”, “Brootal Song Idea”, “So Far, So Good, So Let’s Talk About It”, etc) are relatively disposable. Still though, it is a pretty fun album with Lambesis’s own production making all the tracks pretty stout, and a slight departure from As I Lay Dying. However, I have to wonder if Lambesis wasn’t in AILD and on Metal Blade if this project would have gotten to see the light of day.

My only gripe with the material is personal; What no Conan, Commando or True Lies related songs? And what about Arnie’s arguable cinematic epochs, Jingle all the Way and Junior fer chrissakes?

[Visit the band's website]
Written by Erik T
August 3rd, 2008

Comments

  1. Commented by: Staylow

    TWINS! What about Twins! Great Arnie flick!

    I thought about checking this out as I like most of his movies, but not the biggest AILD fan. Besides, my ’08 parody album slot is currently filled by Zimmers Hole – I don’t see that changing. lol


  2. Commented by: Red

    Nice review, the best I’ve read on this album so far. Personally, I really enjoy this album. It’s true that there is nothing amazing/groundbreaking going on here, though the lead work is pretty damn tasty, yet this is one fun listen. I honestly like this better than AILD. I would have to recommend this to any metalhead who isn’t too up-tight.


  3. Commented by: AARONIUS

    I think this is worth a listen. It’s pretty funny in spots (although I think it would’ve been funnier if they were actually singing as AHNOLD in the songs themselves).

    The funny thing is, most of the songs remind me of Slayer. It’s hilarious to me that Tim’s side project )which is for the most part supposed to be a joke) is just as good if not (in places) better than a legendary thrash band.

    Oh and Erik as far as your complaint that some of your favorite movies weren’t covered, I’m sure Tim’s just trying to save some for the inevitable sequel.


  4. Commented by: drew

    seriously, a surprisingly decent album for what it is. you cant really trash it even if you want to, as they do make mention of all the songs sounding the same and provide ample justification for it.


  5. Commented by: Erik Thomas

    Well-hey there Drew-welcome.


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