Probot-Probot
Probot
Probot
Southern Lord
After much advance hype (2 years worth, by some accounts) and many, many rumors about what the project would be like, I finally received my promo copy of the debut release by Dave Grohl’s Probot side project right before the end of the year. For those who missed all the hype, Foo Fighter Grohl collaborates with a different classic thrash/hardcore/metal vocalist, all heroes of his, on each track of the Probot record, and gets help along the way from the likes of Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil and Jon “Bubba” Dupree of Void/Earth Eighteen fame. The results of these collaborations are nothing less than extraordinary, and capture the essence of the singer in question in nearly every case (there’s one notable exception, but it’s not a bad one…read on), while bringing them to a totally new, heavy place.
The record opens with “Centuries Of Sin”, featuring Cronos of the legendary Venom on vocals and bass duties. Mother of pearl, this is beautiful stuff! It’s everything I wanted the track to be, and then some…heavy, evil, and with an undeniable groove. Cronos is still in great shape, his signature growl intact, and the bass sound is unmistakably his from the first note. This is easily one of the best heavy songs of the past few years.
From there, the record continues at a breakneck pace through a variety of styles. We head to Sepultura/Soulfly’s Max Cavalera and his “Red War”, conjuring up a vintage Sep sound. Next up is the single, “Shake Your Blood”, featuring a man who needs no introduction…Lemmy, and a great approximation of the classic Motorhead sound. Then, we go to the frenetic “Access Babylon” featuring Corrosion Of Conformity’s Mike Dean sounding the best he has in ages, and the aforementioned Jon Dupree’s unmistakable crazy bends in the guitar solo. Great to hear you again, Bubba…hope all’s well in your world. D.R.I.’s Kurt Brecht is next with “Silent Spring”, and it WILL make you mosh like the D.R.I. man!
That brings us to the record’s other superhighlight, Cathedral’s Lee Dorrian and “Ice Cold Man”. Lee, who I recently interviewed on this site, is at the top of his game here, sounding every bit as rock solid and perhaps even more confident than he did on Cathedral’s excellent recent effort “The VIIth Coming”. It’s fantastic to see him shine the way he does, bolstered by Grohl’s and Kim Thayil’s twin guitar assault (the riffs on this are very “Vol. 4″, for you Sabbath fans in the audience). Here’s hoping that, among all these great artists who deserve renewed recognition, Lee’s track brings him and Cathedral a great deal of it, because they’re a tremendous band and great guys to boot.
The record shifts gears in a different way for a few songs at this point, picking up more of a stoner rock vibe ala Kyuss/Queens Of The Stone Age. Doom rock god Wino’s (what band HASN’T he been in?) “The Emerald Law” and, in a bit of a surprise (I told you it was coming), Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost’s “Big Sky” sound very, very QOTSA-ish (being a lover of the “To Mega Therion” record, I have to admit that I was hoping for something that sounded like that out of Tom…), but very good at the same time. They’re just not quite as…metal…as the first 6 tracks, so they took a little getting used to.
Onward from there, we come to Voivod’s Snake and “Dictatosaurus”, which is pretty true to the sound I recall Voivod having later on (they’re a band I’ve never really spent a lot of time with, but I am a little familiar…). This may be the poppiest track on the record, the only thing that sounds remotely similar to Dave’s Foo Fighters stuff, and again, while very different from the all-out-heaviness of the first half of the album, it’s very good.
As we head down the stretch, we get Trouble’s Eric Wagner and “My Tortured Soul”. I was never really able to get into Trouble, but this is an alright song, with the same sorta vibe as some of the heavier, later Beatles stuff (think “Helter Skelter”).
Finishing up the promo release (the full release, due out on Feb. 10th, features a secret bonus track; I won’t ruin the surprise outright, but I can tell you that I did meet the rumored guest vocalist from the secret track recently…people who know me can probably figure out who it is if they want to…) is King Diamond’s “Sweet Dreams” (also featuring some very Soundgarden-ish Kim Thayil guitars). This one did actually took a while to grow on me, because as King’s stuff goes, “Abigail” is probably my favorite record. He was at the top of the business back then, vocally speaking, and he used his crazy operatic range to near-ridiculous excess. Nowadays, King tends to save up the big notes he has left in him, being an older gentleman, and build toward them so they “mean more” so to speak. It takes some adjustment to get into, if you fixate on his mid-to-late 80′s stuff like I do, but give this a chance to grow on you two if you’re an “Abigail”/”Them” freak, as he really does tell a story with his notes here. It’s a nice finale to a fantastic album, surely to be among the best 2004 has to offer.
To sum up: Mr. Grohl, ya done us single, reclusive metal geeks with an unhealthy fixation with the Venom back catalog damn proud, and you did everyone you worked with great justice. Have one on me, boss!
Final Grade: even with the sometimes very noticable shifts in style from song to song, this one gets a big ol’ Fuckin’ A.
For more information on Probot, including the “Shake Your Blood” video, sound clips from the record, and Dave’s thoughts on each of the vocalists (including links to each of their sites), check out the Probot site.