Drummers can pretty much write their own ticket in metal. They seem to be the most in-demand component of metal bands on a consistent basis. Now, this is no doubt because of the practicalities of owning and playing drums. While you can get a guitar you’ll have a tough time outplaying for under six hundred bucks, a decent drum kit is more like a thousand. Then you have to have a place to put the thing and you have to have circumstances that allow you to make a whole bunch of noise on a regular basis. For these reasons, drummers are in much greater demand than string players. Do I dare say that playing drums in a metal band at a high level is harder than doing so on guitar? I don’t know, but it seems like everybody and their brother can shred these days while truly competent drummers are still relatively rare. At any rate, these are things I knew before I began reviewing for this site. What’s been a revelation to me, though, is how difficult it is to find good vocalists. While it’s true that singing or vocalizing can be learned, taught, and improved, I won’t hesitate to say that it is the element of all kinds of music that relies most on natural talent for excellence. As such, it tends to be the downfall of many an otherwise good band. Unfortunately, that is the case with Right Stripped.

To be clear, it’s not that lead vocalist Joe Kiesgen is an atrocious presence behind the mic. And perhaps even more hopefully, Kiesgen seems to have lots of room for improvement. This is because the chief flaw with his clean but somewhat hoarse-sounding delivery is a tendency to sound strained. More often than not, when Kiesgen is belting out one of the more aggressive passages on Absence of Humanity it seems he just can’t quite to get to the note he wants. He’s really trying to do something he’s just not quite capable of, whether it be the attainment of a certain note or an attempt to create some effect, it fails as a musical product. Now, there are many places on the record where this isn’t an issue, but there are enough for it to be a major complaint

Otherwise, Absence of Humanity has much to recommend it. This disc is another in the long line of independent releases that proves just how much can be done without the support of a label. The production here is well-balanced and avoids being too loud while retaining that “modern” sound listeners are accustomed to via radio rock-metal. There is plenty of technically proficient guitar playing, and although I don’t hear anything unusually compelling, there are lots of rather soulful solos that are entertaining enough in the moment. The solo in Forcing Isolation is a real display or prowess. Lyrical themes are philosophical and generally positive. I may detect a hint of religiosity, but it wasn’t explicitly clear to me if that’s the angle. But there’s lots of “when will humanity reach its potential?”-type stuff. Right Stripped is not an extreme metal band. For folks who like their rock or metal a little more accessible while containing moments or respectable heaviness, however, this is a band worth a second look.