Album Reviews : Level Seven – Let It Out

After a quick gunshot and spoken sample, Perth’s Level Seven throw themselves straight into the groove metal category with opening track “War” on their debut release Let It Out. Everything down to the way vocalist Luke yells the F-word has an air of Pantera about it, tainted with something a bit more modern. Surprisingly, and for better or worse, that isn’t the trend for the entire album.

“Take it All Away” introduces some quieter clean vocals and features a much less aggressive main melody, “Drive The Storm” drops things down to almost stoner rock pace, and closer “Broken” steps over the line into, I guess, nu-metal territory. But while each track tends to sit in a slightly different area, they’re all the same in essence, and ultimate lack personality. The riffs are somewhat simple and never really develop, nor do they ever seem to reach the groovy heights they are aiming for. And I could pick what was going to happen next on my first listen through.

That’s not to say Let It Out is a entirely terrible album. Their overall sound is thick and punchy, and there are a few decent melodies here and there. But there’s simply nothing to it that hasn’t been done a million times before, and better. If things like Devildriver, Lamb of God and all of those in the straight-up “metal” vein take your fancy (with a touch of rock), then Level Seven’s debut could be worth a shot, but chances are it’ll feel that little bit pale compared to all of those other bands that are only a couple of clicks away. 4/10

Band: Level Seven
Album: Let It Out
Year: 2011
Genre: Groove/heavy metal
Origin: Perth, Australia
Label: Independent
http://www.levelsevenband.com/

Track listing:
1. War
2. Take It All Away
3. Drive The Storm
4. Let It Out
5. The Widow
6. Faithless
7. Broken