Probot
Probot (2004)

Review by: Craig Curtice
Date: 3/1/04

The year was 1986. Typical Saturday night activities involved driving around aimlessly looking for potential parties with friends in a rusty Datsun 210 station wagon. With the volume stuck on eleven, we listened to threadbare cassettes through trashed house speakers lying in the back. Not only classics from Maiden, Priest, and Halen, but also stuff like Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, and The Misfits. For a suburban white boy, nothing used to be as quite as comfortable as long hair, shredded jeans, a good buzz, and an occasional metal show on the radio at 2:00 AM.

Two decades later Probot sounds just like those old innocuous metal shows – loud, fast, and deliciously guilty. A Dave Grohl labor of love for all things kick-ass, the album took four years and eleven lead singers to complete, but it’s not what you might think. Grohl wrote different songs specifically for each singer while ambitiously playing most of the instruments himself, including drums, which sound just monstrous.

Old school metal heads will surely know who King Diamond and Lemmy Kilminster are, but few casual rockers may distinguish Kurt Brecht (D.R.I.), Tom G. Warrior (Celtic Frost), or Snake (Voivod) apart. Regardless, each singer’s voice could seemingly curdle blood or peel paint, and combined with Grohl’s power riff expertise, well, let’s just say this album is explosive. Extra special distinction goes to Max Cavalera of Sepultura fame, as he sounds like he’s gargling glass and simultaneously being ripped to pieces by Cenobites on “Red War.”

Feel like getting yer metal ya-ya’s out, but confused by all the nu metal crap out there nowadays? Probot is the simple answer. But just in case you’re out cruising on a date, when it comes to making out – be sure to have the first side of Led Zeppelin IV cued up.