Dutch band Badly Preserved started out in 1999. They made two albums (out of their own pocket) already and were the winner of the “Zeeuwse Popprijzen 2003”. I don’t know much about Zeeuwse Popmuziek, but whether winning this award means a whole lot is to be seen. The CD on hand is ‘Excluding Failure’, which is a 3-song EP. It is Nu-metal(core at times), and nu-metal is (almost) completely finished if you ask me, however there are a few bands that still hold their own, like Unjust, Taproot, and… Well that’s about it. And of course the Deftones started out as nu-metal, but are now something brilliant no one can describe. Badly Preserved sounds like Taproot mixed with some Stuck Mojo and a (really small) bit of Metalcore. Judging from this disc, they posses a certain amount of talent and shortcomings. Luckily, the rapping is gone, though.

Their talent is especially shown on song two, “Excluding Failures”, where instruments and vocals come together perfectly for most of the song. Especially the vocals are very good on this track.

The strange thing with singer Elton is, that although his voice isn’t quite brilliant, he manages to grab your attention, as you are curious what kind of vocal sound is next. Very cool. Remarkable. Diverse.
In the instrumental department there are a few things left to be desired. The riffing is at times a bit standard and too straight forward. There is variation in the guitarplay (distorted-clean), but all and all the band is instrumentally not interesting enough to listen to longer than 18 minutes. That is quite a problem when you consider it’s every band’s goal to create albums instead of EP’s.
Nice band, good feel, an amount of talent, but a lack of inventiveness instrumentally makes the listener want something extra this band can’t (seem to) offer. Still, I feel Badly Preserved have a future, if they find a way to do something more on the instrumental side of things (more Stuck Mojo-riffing and drums?) and make their music stand out. (And then get the fuck out of Zeeland).