Crown of Apathy is the debut album from American singer and multi-instrumentalist Mick Blankenship. Writing and recording all aspects of your debut album can be challenging, but Blankenship also has help in the form of experienced producer John Moyer (Disturbed, Art of Anarchy) and the considerable talents of Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (Guns n’ Roses, Sons of Apollo) on guitar. With names of considerable pedigree behind him, the impression is that Blankenship is set on making a statement from the off and leaving his mark on the rock music scene. But names are one thing, how does the music hold up?
Things kick off in typical modern hard rock fashion: a subdued guitar and vocal line is led by a stomping kick drum into the mid-tempo main riff of opening track Transcend the Machine. The guitar work is quite simple so that the focus is on the rhythm, which sounds designed to get crowds jumping at the start of the gig (or at least set off some appreciative nodding from the more reserved audience members). Alongside the stomping rhythms are the sing-along choruses that you would expect from this style. The chorus on Transcend the Machine offers a change in tonality to the rest of the song, providing a subtle but effective diversification. All in all, a solid opening track that just about any rock fan will enjoy to some degree. The pace is slackened slightly on follow up track, Eye for an Eye. The introduction features some choral chants that, if isolated from the rest of the instruments, wouldn’t sound out of place on the Skyrim soundtrack. When combined with tribal-style drums and the vocal introduction, this makes for a very effective start. The chorus again goes for a slight mood change, but here it just serves to disturb the ‘epic’ feel the song is going for and so sounds out of place. This track also features one of the solos laid down by (presumably) Bumblefoot, featuring his unique combination of weird and wonderful sounds interlaced with some standard shredding.
Much of the remainder of the album does not deviate from the formula laid out by the opener: simple riffs, fat, heavy radio rock rhythms plus choruses aspiring for that ‘massive’ sound with varying degrees of success. Various subtle changes in pace help to break up the album, the first notably more restrained track being If You Died Today, a song that plays on that overused lyrical theme of living in the here and now. While the lyrics are nothing new the track is a good showcase for Blankenship’s voice as he utilises a range of both pitch and power. His style is noticeably cleaner than many other modern rock singers, very rarely adding much in the way of rasp or anger to his vocal delivery. The exception is the final track, Worthless Me. The vocals sound strongly influenced by David Draiman and Brent Smith (of Disturbed and Shinedown respectively), taking a very rhythmic and aggressive style of vocal delivery, almost shouting at times. As this is also the heaviest track on the album, it is an enjoyable curveball to round things off.
Crown of Apathy, while nothing that will set the rock world aflame, is a solid, well rounded modern heavy rock album. There is very little to interest anyone who is after a masterclass in technical excellence, but the heavy grooves and rhythms laid down will reward most listeners. It is the heavier tracks that will most likely see people returning to this album, despite there being a couple of slower, more ballad-like tracks present, but of these only Someone Else carries anything in the way of life or emotion. The heavy-radio-rock genre is fairly congested at present, with recent releases from big names such as Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown and Bullet for my Valentine (to name a few) all on the airwaves, but if you want a break from the big releases then there you might just find something here to get your blood pumping. Has Mick Blankenship made a unique statement of musical intent with his debut? Hardly. But has he made an enjoyable modern rock album? Most certainly.
Highlights: Transcend the Machine, If You Died Today and Worthless Me.
Crown of Apathy is out now and can be purchased here.
You can find Mick Blankenship on Facebook, Twitter and on his website.
