What can you expect when your beloved editor-in-chief describes your next review as modern metal from Austria? To be honest I am rarely a fan of labeling things in music even though i do that from time to time but the cover of the sophomore album of ARTAS was preparing me for something....different! Three years have passed since the debut named "The Healing" and what a comeback, with 16 songs and a duration of over 70 minutes! Everything pointed to a really interesting listening till...

...The intro song ended! "Fortress Of No Hope" started with a trademark "core" riff which actually was a sign of what to expect from the rest of the album. Fast paced solo-free songs, repetitive riffs (uninspired in their majority) and boring vocals would be three key notes of "Riotology". I can't say I didn't like what I heard the first time I heard it, especially the first 5 songs but that's that...After quite few listens nothing seems to be memorable apart from few songs with non-English lyrics like the "Rassenhaus", "Le Saboteur" and "No Pasaran" but then again when you try to figure out what language is it you lose interest. Again. "Riotology" is filled with fillers (pun intended) which you can surely expect when you releasing an album with 16 songs! I am pretty sure the end result would be way better (or more tolerable) if you could just have half the songs in it! Did I mention that the guy in the lead vocals sound like an angry Ville Laihiala from SENTENCED? Well ladies don't start screaming towards him, he isn't as hot as Ville so thank me for saving you the embarrassment. If I have -like forced with a gun in my forehead- to choose my "favorite" song from the album that would be "The Grin Behind The Mirror" and I don't think that would make my top 100 song list by the end of the year. They are really trying to sound pissed at everything, somehow disgusted from the current status quo of society, angry and revolutionary. There are times they are trying to rip-off groups like HEAVEN SHALL BURN but doing it in a more "radio" friendly way. Commercialization is all over "Riotology"! From the cover and the "catchy" -easy to remember, easy to forget- tunes to the image ARTAS are trying to project. It is good if it works for them but for sure it doesn't work for their music.

Sadly, "Riotology" is an album that will probably gather dust in my place. There is nothing that will make you want to come back and listen to it. Repetition is painfully present to every song and gives you that lousy feeling that you hear the same thing over and over again; vocals are so empty that you think you hear your neighbor's angry kid screaming at his brother for stealing his PS3 controller and any kind of "groove" the album is trying to pass on it just gets lost to the really unnecessary big duration of the album. Too bad, because the cover of the album was actually cool...Oh well....