Review: Sam Mooradian – Bad Brain

Style: prog metal, shred guitar, djent (mostly instrumental, mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of:  Periphery, Fallujah, Animals as Leaders, Nuclear Power Trio
Review by: Andy
Country: United States-MA
Release date: 28 July, 2023

Brains are stupid and dumb. I have a bad brain: It won’t cooperate, can’t regulate, and constantly argues with itself. Metal sometimes fixes it, though. As my peer Zach once put it, “Infant Annihilator is like one of those baby stimulation videos for me.” Is Sam Mooradian’s (of Fallujah) debut solo album the type of metal that can help reel in my bad brain? 

For the most part instrumental, Bad Brain actively jumps around with very intricate, percussive guitar leads and noodly solos–somewhere in between Bulb, Animals as Leaders, and Syncatto. Mooradian’s strengths as a performer are immediately evident as the title track’s pick-scraped main riff and jagged guitar tomfoolery energetically and distinctively set forth a tone of instrumental virtuosity. Other tracks like the finale, “Come and Get Me” use Animals as Leaders-esque riffage as well as a cool coda selection, Mooradian’s abilities shown off as both a composer and experienced shredder. 

Mooradian enlists the help of several people to make his solo venture a reality–to varying success. Flub’s melodic technical death metal stylings certainly fit in with Fallujah’s guitar player on “Suspicious Gait,” yet the harsh vocals at the start of the track transpose me away from the atmosphere built up by the previous track. On “Tinnitus,” the Subway’s controversial reviewee The World Is Quiet Here make an appearance, but they don’t even provide those contentious vocals which differentiate themselves from hordes of other prog metal groups, so I’m unimpressed by the lackluster instrumental contribution. Featuring Archaeologist, the longest track, “Assassin Mad,” falls into the perils of Periphery-type djent with the clean vocal style even with Mooradian’s sickeningly technical guitar parts. However, the best guest performance highlights the best track on the album: Blumen on “Titrate Down.” The jazz pianist perfectly accentuates the heavier sections with rumbling overtones, and he is just as capable of providing a dramatic, cinematic buildup in his solo around the halfway point to let the track crescendo in a bombastic, satisfying way. Mooradian and Blumen need to collaborate more in the future. 

Crisp and warm, the production really exists to highlight Mooradian’s guitar, unfortunately sometimes at the expense of the bass. A bass mixed higher with more parts of its own would drastically improve how engaging the middle of Bad Brain is because the album becomes a bit of a slog after “Titrate Down.” I reckon that Sam Mooradian focuses too much on rhythmic proficiency and occasionally forgets that sugary melodies are what propel this style best. Focusing on the rhythms makes Bad Brain sound like Syncatto with less flair, losing me in dryer cuts like “Real Anger,” “Tinnitus,” and “Spies Are Listening.” More dynamic bass counterpoint could easily have solved this problem as could more open and airy riffing–without lessening the impact of heavy sections. In fact, the heavy sections would feel more noticeably headbangable if juxtaposed a bit more.

Nobody is going into this album without expectations that Sam Mooradian is gonna shred your face off and sound great doing it; and he does. However, the rhythmic focus and typically middling guest performances dampen the overall package a significant amount. I enjoyed listening to Bad Brain, but not enough engaging riffage happens throughout to fully distract my bad brain, so I start thinking too much about other things, like Syncatto or metaphysics and The Void which consumes us all.

Recommended tracks: Bad Brain, Titrate Down, Come and Get Me
You may also like: Bulb, Flub, Syncatto, Sound Struggle
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Sam Mooradian is:
– Sam Mooradian (guitar, other stuff)