Tourettes have returned. Only a year after their debut album, when they were still called Tourettes Syndrome. Now their sophomore effort is upon us. And, whereas the debut ‘Sick Sense’ had its moments, especially when vocalist Michelle Madden toned it down, this one called ‘Treason Songs’ is easily one of the most dreadful albums of the year.

It all hinges towards death metal this time around. Of course the compulsory Swedish bits here and there are in place and furthermore they tend to really stink up the disc with some dire cliché metalcore bits.
The biggest difference with ‘Sick Sense’ is vocalist Michelle Madden. On ‘Sick Sense’ she did a lot of different things of which her clean voice worked best. Alas, she only uses her grunt on this album. Unluckily that is a low-quality grunt that wears out its welcome quickly. With said grunt she barks her lousy lyrics in vocal lines that are all over the place. That the lyrics are in dire need of talent is something that was also evident on their debut album. Things like ‘She’s the reason I deny myself’, I mean, come on, that is just plain awful and bad. It all reeks of nu-metal of days long gone. ‘My daddy wasn’t nice to me’, that sort of thing.
But it isn’t just vocally that the album shoots and misses by a mile, ‘Treason Songs’ fails on every level. The instrumental side of things is appalling as well.

The drummer and bass-player just do their thing with no frills or what have you, but it’s the guitarplay that completely drains the last life out of the goings on. Most of the riffs are just really, for lack of a better word, bad. They sound like shit. Guitarist Ashley Manning clearly had no inspiration whatsoever, because even when the riffs aren’t awful, we get tedious, unimaginative riffing that sounds like it’s been copied off of dozens of death metal CD’s. Listen to ‘D.N.A.’ and ‘Hope Springs Eternal’, for instance: copy-paste Swedish death metal riffs. The only thing the guy does well is the solo in song nine.

Tourettes have really and truly dug their own grave with this atrocious shit-sandwich album called ‘Treason Songs’. Instrumentally bleak, retarded and played out before you ever even heard it, vocally one dimensional, witless and just very, very poor. Michelle Madden and her Australian bunch are trying to be a fashionable Swedish(-ish) death metal band all of a sudden and it’s a suit they really shouldn’t be wearing for it makes them look like buffoons. Singer Madden should focus on clean singing and the instrumental section should play melodic rock stuff but they won’t, because Tourettes seem to think they need to play as badass as they look or something. How silly and childish.