The Ultimate Review of Maniac

I don't know if I'm supposed to know what's going on here for the most part. For one thing, why would a band like MyGrain choose to cover this song? Who do they think they are, Children of Bodom? I'm suddenly found to be doubting the band's taste, but that's just personal opinion.

Credit where it's due, they improved the song. Tommy's vocals alone would probably have done that, but the rest of the band admittedly pull their weight too. There are very brief moments of harsh vocals, but for the most part it's the cleans that steal the spotlight. I can't praise this guy enough, he has immense talent, but when the song is one like this there's not too much room for originality. The keyboard is the main way to try and create the song, as it was in the original version by Michael Sembello, only slightly thicker and pretty much completely cutting off the other instruments. As a result the guitars are mostly background noise, not really doing too much other than play the same riffs on repeat, but the solo at least gives them a bit of credit. Everything else they do pretty much blends in with the drums, and the two become almost the same instrument at times. As a whole the drumming is fairly true to the original, nothing complex and practically every note being the same regular beat.

And that's about all there is to it. It's a metal version of the original version of Maniac. A very watery and weak metal version. And that disappoints me, because I expect more from MyGrain. Even if they choose a song like this one, I'd hope that it was done well. There's not really anything that's done so well that the original suddenly looks like horse-crap by comparison. What I'm getting at is that because the original was actually none too great to begin with this is not a very good song.

Coming back to Children of Bodom who I mentioned earlier, I'm sure you're aware that most of the fans think their covers are a complete waste of time. But what do they do, time after time after time after time after time? Pump out more of the same shit. For their own sake MyGrain better not be starting the same thing, because it's not good for business to gain that kind of reputation. The world can do without covers of Britney Spears being spread around the metal community, thank you very much.

If you're looking for the real MyGrain, ignore this song. If you've seen that they've released a single and you just can't be arsed listening to an entire album by them but want to get an impression, this is not the song to look at. Anything off of their self-titled album will leave you richly entertained - Maniac will not.
Final Score: 64 / 100