LEGO

Lego is the fourth full-length studio album by Italian technical/ progressive death metal act Sadist. Lego is widely considered the black sheep of the family ( read: The discography) though and didn´t bring much praises to the band when it was released in 2000. Neither from fans nor critics. After a couple of very interesting technical/ progressive death metal albums in Tribe (1996) and Crust (1997) ( I personally find Tribe to be a seminal album in the tech/ extreme genre), Sadist really took a wrong-turn deserting their technical/ progressive death metal roots in favour of a more contemporary NU- metal style. The album was recorded at the group´s own studio Nadir Recording and while earlier albums ( probably because of limited studio time) clocked in around the 40 minute mark Lego is a 69:19 minute long affair. The album is produced by the band themselves.

While the music still has few progressive elements it´s obvious that Sadist wanted to try something very different on Lego. There´s nothing wrong with the musicianship or the production on the album but the music is not very interesting IMO. If you enjoy something that sounds like a bad version of Korn meets P.O.D. there´s a chance you might enjoy this, but personally this genre does not appeal much to me and 69:19 minutes of this is close to doing me in if I have to be honest. It´s not all bad though and there are some ideas and sections on the album that does sound powerful and exciting but they are few and far between. I find it rather sad that an innovative and IMO groundbreaking act like Sadist ended up making an album like this. It would also have serious consequences for the band as they broke up shortly after the release of the album. Sadist returned with their self-titled fifth album in 2007 where the band redeemed themselves considerably. This one will be a doubtful purchase even for the fans. 2 stars are all I can give.