The Singles Jukebox

“Drenching the soil with blood, baptized in the fire hole” – have a good weekend!

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Brad Shoup: They Danzagged.
[5]

Cassy Gress: It’s not that difficult to write rollicking 12/8 hard rock, Volbeat; there’s even a great one out there to model your song after! But this isn’t even ABAB; it’s frustratingly half an A, and the B section positively drags. Adding to this song’s problems, the jaunty way Michael Poulsen sings “Drenching the soil with blood, baptized in the fire hole” makes me want to reply with “That’s the way we do it when we play The Grape Escape!”
[3]

Jessica Doyle: For a moment I stiffened, but, no, the children are outside the church. It’s not a Rwanda reference. Phew! I was not looking for reasons to turn against this pirate chanty crackling with Atomic Age energy.
[7]

Katie Gill: This is so endearingly cliche, I love it. Volbeat hits up the entire metal checklist. Pounding guitars? Check! Focus on Satan? Check! Scream-singing? Check! Namechecking some other ancient mythology? Sumerian, check! They’re gonna commit to making a bog-standard metal song, but it’s gonna be a DAMN GOOD bog-standard metal song. A great pile of ridiculous from a band that unfortunately shares its name with a Pokemon.
[8]

Taylor Alatorre: Built on a sturdier foundation than most radio-sanctioned hard rock, but doesn’t greatly expand upon it. But if you’re a single-issue rocker, and that single issue happens to be spirited chug-chug-chugging, then this just might hit the spot.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The beat’s crunchy, like classic Against Me! with glitter and tulle covering the drum kit. The received Paradise Lost imagery gets put over with enthusiasm if not much originality. I imagine these dudes pissing themselves laughing with what they got away with.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: This song is Danish metal band Volbeat’s fifth to top the US Mainstream Rock chart, which only proves to me the paucity of good mainstream rock at the moment. The music is barely average late-’80s metal, and the lyrics are ridiculous.
[3]

Lilly Gray: I’m obsessed with the singular ululation after “the goat, the womanizer” that drags out the last syllable of “womanizer” as if a goat was actually bleating it: an artistic choice I firmly support. The guitar solo and headbang rhythm are exactly what I would put as the backing track to my Sasquatch footage compilation video or a recording of me trying to skateboard off the back of my stepdad’s van. The lyrics, the vaguely intestinal firehouse video — what can I say, I’m a sucker for Satan. 
[5]

Tim de Reuse: The platonic ideal of a Guitar Hero filler track — you know, the one playing instead of that famous one you really like and before that other famous one you also like that was only included because the band’s licensing fee was a hell of a lot cheaper than Nirvana’s and it’s not a bad song but you’d never actually seek it out when friends are over
[4]