Probot

20 in 2024: Probot

Dave Grohl, man who needs no introduction if you've paid attention to alternative rock since the 90's, here in 2004 he put together a batch of tracks inspired by metal music he grew up with, intended as throwaways that were never gonna be used in Foo Fighters, him and his producer had the idea to turn the demos into songs catered to specific metal-frontmen. This turned into "Probot", a mixtape type album of songs written in similar styles to the respective guest vocalist.

You've got: Cronos of Venom, Max Cavalera of Soulfly and Sepultura, Lemmy of Motorhead, Mike Dean of Corrosion of Conformity, Kurt Brecht of DRI, Lee Dorrian of Cathedral and Napalm Death, Wino of St. Vitus and Obsessed, Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost, Snake of Voivod, Eric Wagner of Trouble, and King Diamond. Additionally Jack Black appears on a hidden track.

Each track is meant to mimic the style of the artist's respective bands they were apart of, with Dave playing most of the instruments (Kim Thayil of Soundgarden assists on "Ice Cold Man") and different frontmen playing their respective instrument for their songs too (Mike Dean on Bass, Lemmy on Bass, Wino with Guitars).

Overall this project is pretty good, the first few tracks are awesome. They sound so good honestly they might as well be B-Sides from those artist's original groups. The Cavalera song and Lemmy song especially sound incredibly tight and spot-on. Throughout this album though there are a few instances of the songs not really gelling with the guest vocalist in my opinion. "Access Babylon" felt really messy, and "Big Sky" was extremely repetitive and uninteresting to me personally. "Ice Cold Man" was a decent attempt at a doomier style, but it felt a little hollow in execution. "The Emerald Law" was ambitious, but ultimately felt a little cobbled together rather than a tight and satisfying performance. I will also say this, I don't think Dave writes good metal-inspired lyrics, and the corniness of most of the material here did take me out of it a little bit. Like on King Diamond's song "Sweet Dreams", KD sells the vocals, he really put his all into that performance, but I can't take it seriously at all with the lyrics provided. "Big Sky" again, felt really repetitive and lyrically there was nothing there for Warrior to anything with.

I will say though, the DRI-inspired song was incredibly authentic sounding, even if the lyrics were very on the nose about the subject matter, it worked in that context. The Voivod song with Snake was also really well done all things considered. I don't know how well I was expecting a Space-Prog-Speed-Metal song would go with Dave Grohl's skillset but it was pulled off decently well. Also gotta add, I love how Voivod-esque the album cover is, gotta be one of the coolest Album Arts of this period.

So yeah that's this weird little metal project in a nutshell. I liked it for what it was, the production was great and you can really picture in your head the amount of fun and heart that went into something like this, it's really a neat meeting of the minds and a cute way to pay tribute to the music that raised Dave. At best it's a great tribute, at worst it sounds a little like parody, but at the end of the day, it's heavy and ambitious and worth checking out.

"I am the pain in your brain when you dream"