Music Review: Apocalyptica's Worlds Collide

Once again, Apocalyptica's latest album is out in Europe months before the U.S. release (due in North America on March 18, 2008). I was fortunate enough to pick up Worlds Collide at a reasonable price while in Europe just after the local release. Worlds Collide marks their sixth studio album, and how far they have come since their first effort covering Metallica songs with four cellos.

Since Reflections (two albums ago), Apocalyptica has added drums as a full-time feature, changing the dynamic of their songs somewhat. For the most part, Worlds Collide is a natural progression of their last couple of albums, featuring drums and a more classical composition than in their earlier efforts. Worlds Collide does have some heavier moments, as well, and when the band retreats to the typical low-end of their cellos with moderate distortion, they also tend to sound more industrial in this latest effort.

The guest musicians on this album are a marked improvement and more metal than on past efforts. Apocalyptica has increased the number of songs featuring vocals to four on this effort. Guest vocalists include Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour), Till Lindemann (Rammstein), Adam Gontier (Three Days Grace) and Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil). Dave Lombardo is also once again featured on drums for the song "Last Hope." After Reflections and their self-titled effort, I was highly skeptical of further use of vocals by the band, but two of these songs on "Worlds Collide" have become my favorites and all of them are excellent single-quality, as is likely their intent.

The first two tracks are fairly consistent with what one would come to expect from Apocalyptica in recent years (with the addition of drums, as previously stated). "Worlds Collide" is a classical-sounding piece with well-executed heavy parts. "Grace" starts out with some heavy strumming of the cello before embarking on a somewhat fast-paced but more melodic song. A dose of guitar is added to the song by Tomoyasu Hotei, but while noticable, the guitars mostly play in line with the cellos and blend very well.