Punisher Warzone Soundtrack Review

Over the years we’ve seen many great movie soundtracks with some notable metal bands in the mix. Some of them were all metal and some, mostly metal. What I hate the most is when I get a soundtrack that has songs from a favorite band that is on their latest album and chances are that I already have it. This is kind of the case with the Punisher Warzone.

The first track on it is an original from Rob Zombie. Titled after the movie, Warzone is the electric, techno-metal that you can expect from Rob and it doesn’t sound like anything different from Zombies lat albums. As I stated a little while back, it starts out kind of cool but I’m quickly turned off by it as soon as the vocals and rhythm kick in. Sounds like it was done in a day or two.

The second and third tracks we are all familiar with. Slayer’s Final Six from Christ Illusion and Psychosocial from Slipknot’s latest release, All Hope Is Gone. Two cool tracks, but I’ve already heard them. Do they fit in this movie? Most likely.

Now remember where I said that you have soundtracks that are mostly metal? This is where it goes non-metal and more into the pop/rock genre. The fourth track is Historia Calamitatum from Rise Against. Not a bad track but not something I’m used to listening to and not something I’m really into.

Track five is Seether’s Fallen from their latest Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces. Seether is a good rock band. Not a bad track, but I’ve heard this once again and I would rather hear new tracks on a movie soundtrack.

Kerli’s Bulletproof is the sixth track and sounds like a slower goth-rock, Lacuna Coil-ish sounding tune. Not too bad if you dig that sound.

7 Days Away follows Kirli with Take Me Away. A solid rock song with a a few good hooks and a decent sound to it, but doesn’t sound much different from a lot of the rock bands floating around the modern rock genre these days.

Senses Fail hold the 8th spot with The Past Is Proof. If you know who Senses Fail are then you know how this track sticks out like a turd in a punch bowl among the others. We go from a Hard Rock/ Metal soundtrack and the this pop/rock/emo sounding crap that makes you wish you were deaf or at least had an ice pick near by to pierce your ear drums.

The ninth track called Butterfly Wings is by Machines Of loving Grace. Another techno/pop/metal song with Rob Zombie/ Nine Inch Nails influence.

Track 10 is 3 minutes and 56 seconds that you’re going to wish you had back. Genesis by Justice is a strange track with ambient sounds, sample and all sorts of crap that just sound like it was made with a cheap Casio Keyboard and Acid-pro.

Pendulum’s Showdown make up the next track and it’s another electrified pop/punk sound. I though this stuff died out in 1997. Guess it’s still cool to put in to movie soundtracks.

Ok, it’s about to get better. Hatebreed’s cover of Sepultura’s classic Refuse/ Resist is a really good cover. It’s almost spot on, but I have to wonder who did the solos because as far as I have really never heard a solo like that in a Hatebreed song and I often wondered the capability of  Sean Martin and Frank Novinec’s guitar skills. Being a huge fan of Classic Sepultura, this track couldn’t have been in the right place to bring me back out of the slump I was in while listening to the songs before it.

Second to last on the soundtrack is Static X’s Lunatic. If you know me then you know that I’m not a fan of this band, however compared to most of the other songs on this soundtrack it’s better than most. Sounds similar to every other Static X song though.

The last track is by Ramallah with a track called Days Of Revenge. Kind of a nu-metal sound to it with keyboards and a rap-ish vocal verse. Not too bad but sounds more like Linkin Park if they were to go a little heavier.

I would say that I’m kind of disappointed with this soundtrack just for the fact that there is too much of the techno-electro crap and not enough good metal on it. No one ever said it was going to be a metal-driven sound track but that’s kind of what I expected. 4 out of 14 of the songs are good solid metal songs, but two of those tracks I’ve heard and only one of the other two I really like. Not a great soundtrack in my opinion. I think the last movie soundtracks that I really liked were Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight and Dee Snider’s Strangeland. That was a long time ago and I don’t think that I have really bought many since then. The last one that comes to mind is Underworld Evolution and that one sucked with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 songs.

As far as the movie goes, I’m really looking forward to seeing this. I wasn’t sure how this new guy Ray Stevenson would go over to replace Thomas Jane (And I would love to know why the actor change) but Ray Stevenson has a more hardened look to him. Thomas Jane did a good job in the first one, but Frank Castle always looked a little tougher than Jane. We’ll see.

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