Angel Blake

Angel Blake’s self-titled debut is the kind of album I enjoy involuntarily, with a mix of pleasure and amusement. It’s tastefully cheesy, if such a thing is possible, delivering lines like "I’m trying to become alive by killing you” with a droll vocal wit and biting instrumental accompaniment to match. The pleasure grows thinner as the album wears on, and the "Paint It, Black” cover offers only a few bars worth catching — the worn out song, heard while examining Angel Blake’s album art, evokes images of people beating dead goats with guitars. That said, songs like "Retaliate” and the previously quoted "Self-terminate” are well worth a listen or several. There’s definitely not much of the Crown in this, despite Angel Blake being the brainchild of Marko Tervonen. The record is more a hybrid of Sentenced and Type O Negative and old west thrash, had such a thing existed. And now I’m convinced it should.