Everything about Last Stop China Town is ‘methulz’. The fonts used on the CD cover. The picture on the sleeve. This would be a frothing volcano set amidst what appears to be Mordor. The then predictable album name, Into the Volcano. The monochrome band picture and song titles. These include the cheery sounding 'Rage Within', 'Pain of a Thousand' and 'Just Surrender'. It goes on, and on, and on.You could, and probably should, substitute the snare drum for an anvil and the tour bus for a Viking Longboat on this evidence. Then you get to the actual business of the music itself. 'Mechanical Sunrise' rolls out of the blocks with a sting in its tail. Omnipresent double bass drums thunder through the mix, accompanied (and this is for the benefit of any drummers out there) by the usual ludicrously fast roll around the kit; from snare to floor toms. A reasonably firm and beefy chord pattern strikes out of this, the cherry on top of which being a falsetto wail that instantly evokes Messrs Maiden and Priest.Things get steadily more ridicolous from here on in, with 'Blood in the Snow' up next, a song that for all its bluster and aggression carves out a chorus that really is just Eurovision. And/or Man O War. Take a bit of Lordi and mix it up with some of the other madness that this song ‘contest’ proffers, and there are genuine, alarming similarities.If you were in any doubt as to whether this was just a flash in the pan, skip on a bit and listen to 'The End of Days'. As a composition, it is near enough the best track on the album, but again gives way to a chorus whereby if the instruments were switched from detuned chugging monolithic guitars to synth keyboards (those ones you can play like a guitar, complete with strap) you would almost certainly receive 12 points from Latvia. And this is the great difficulty with Into The Volcano.It’s trying its level best to flatten you with passages of ferocity and instrumental bravado, and just comes off as silly. The best example of this is during 'Voices' where the band hits full stride; the drums belting along at a socking pace, the guitars stabbing and sweeping wildly, the singer having a pulmonary embolism. But it means nothing.The music and approach to it has all been done so so many times. Listening to many of the tracks makes you realise they can certainly play on a technical level, and in some cases, the writing can make for decent enough thrash alongs. The opener and 'Just Surrender', coincidentally the closer, have a smattering of riffs and a punkish energy that satisfy on a level. In between all of this though, nada.The one thing that genuinely is unusual is the band name. With everything else so to formula, why Last Stop China Town? Where is the Iron, the War, the ‘Deth’? It’s almost like a peculiar punchline to everything you hear on the album itself. Into the Volcano is then proof if it were needed, that songwriting of this kind is a more subtle game than many credit it with.Last Stop China Town on Myspace