Probot

Most of you are probably familiar with Dave Grohl's reputation as drummer of the Seattle grunge rock group Nirvana as well as guitarist/vocalist and chief songwriter of the hard rock outfit The Foo Fighters. Now Grohl takes the opportunity to show a heavy metal side to his talent that he has not had the chance to do until now. Probot is a project that Grohl has had in the works for a while. Most of the music is based on a time period that was extremely influential to him (1983 - 1990). This includes a mix of slow doomy metal, death metal, thrash metal and metallic sounding bone crushing metal. Most of the music (drums, bass and rhythm guitars) was written and performed by Grohl. It was recorded in his home studio and sent to what is a hand picked cast of some of Grohl's favorite metal musicians from that time period. From there Grohl gave total artistic freedom to the vocalists, allowing them to add their own lyrics and vocal melodies to the music. There's even some instrument-additions from some of the singers. The end result is uncanny because Grohl claims he did not intentionally write the music for the preferred vocalists in mind. But many of the songs sound as if they could have come from an album from any of the respected artist's albums. The end result is an epic compilation metal album of monumental proportions. Even the artwork is provided by none other than Away from Voivod. "Shake Your Blood" is a fist pounding rocker that features Lemmy from Motorhead on vocals as well as a special performance from the Icon of Filth himself on bass. Cronos of Venom provides his trademark bulldozer bass and death vocals on "Centuries Of Sin"; an old-school styled fast thrash metal song. King Diamond lends his schizophrenic vocals to the track "Sweet Dreams". It contains everything you could possibly want from the King, from the trademark falsetto highs to the haunting melodies and ghostly low vibratos. A shredding guitar solo by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden also gives this song something extra special. There is also a hidden bonus track within this song. Some of my favorites are the slow, doomy Black Sabbath influenced tracks like "Ice Cold Man", featuring Lee Dorian (Napalm Death/Cathedral) and "My Tortured Soul" with Eric Wagner (Trouble). Another highlight to this album is the trippy and upbeat psychedelic rocker "The Emerald Law", featuring Wino (The Obsessed/St. Vitus/Place of Skulls) on vocals and some blistering intense guitar leads. Some of the more technical, metallic and machine like sounding songs are "Big Sky" with Tom G. Warrior from Celtic Frost, "Dictatorsaurus" featuring Snake from Voivod and "Red Sky" with Max Cavalera of Soulfly/Sepultura. I believe that anyone who follows any of the music from the musicians that participated on this album will like the songs. This album is a surprise to say the least. Dave Grohl has really shown a welcomed side of his talent by releasing Probot!