Austrian Death Machine
Jingle All The Way
Metal Blade
19 December 2011

by Hugh Platt

Now is probably not the time to apply serious, intellectual rigour to the task of evaluating the new, Christmas-themed EP from Austrian Death Machine, the Schwarzenegger-obsessed side-project of As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis. Nor is it the time to point out (yet again) that ArnoCorps did it first, and if we’re honest, did it better. No, Christmas is a time for knocking back a dozen or so revolting egg-based alcoholic drinks one after the another, for watching cheesy Christmas movies for the umpteenth times, and for expressing goodwill to all men.

Even if those men are responsible for Austrian Death Machine.

This isn’t the first Christmas release from the As I Lay Dying frontman’s Arnoldistic outlet – back in 2008, Lambesis released A Very Brutal Christmas. Interestingly enough, the spoken-word intro to that EP’s centrepiece, an OTT and purposefully meatheaded cover of the traditional Christmas song, ‘Jingle All The Way’, Lambesis jokingly admits that he “but I can’t seem to come up with one that does justice to your masterpiece, Jingle All The Way“. So what’s changed in the past three years that means Lambesis now thinks he can get away with not just one song based on Schwarzenegger’s Christmas clowning, but three?

Yes. THREE.

Well, nothing. Nothing at all. As befits a band that exists for no reason other than to provide teenage boys with three-minute bursts of YouTube-sniggering, Lambesis’ Austrian Death Machine songwriting remains as subtle as his (and Arnold’s) comedic delivery. If it wasn’t for the over-egged Arnie impersonations, ‘It’s Turbo Time’ could be a Biohazard song. Yes, that’s the level of musical nuance you can expect from Jingle All The Way.

Watch a “teaser trailer” for Jingle All The Way by Austrian Death Machine:

But the “comedy”…oh wow. It almost beggars belief how mismanaged it is – if you’re going to write a song that pokes fun at cookie monster vocals, you don’t need to use a “comedy” voice at the start of the song to openly announce the joke you’re planning on making. Yet that’s exactly what Lambesis does with ‘Who Told You You Could Eat My Cookie?’ I would have highlighted this is an example of Lambesis’ consistent underestimation the comedic faculties of his audience, but then I remember those giggling YouTube-teens that this is aimed at, and realise that it’s my overestimations of the audience that’s actually the problem here.

If there’s one inarguable positive we can spin out of this release, it’s that Austrian Death Machine are infinitely more digestible over the course of an EP than they are over their full-length albums. Whereas ADM’s albums insist on scraping the bottom of this ever-shallower comedic furrow for the best part of an hour, here at least everything is over and done with in under nine minutes. That and the fact that while it’s still vapid and brainless and stretched thinner than a supermodel’s diet diary, surely, surely this is as far as this “joke” can go, right?

“I’m thinking of calling the next album KEEP IT BRUTAL. What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?”

A direct quotation from Tim Lambesis’ MySpace blog for Austrian Death Machine.

For fuck’s sake.

2/6

Sounds like: Thrashed-up metalcore with Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions. Keep those expectations under control, sunshine.
Top track: Who Told You You Could Eat My Cookies?