Since Rob Zombie took up the writer/director role, his first musical career has been more or less tossed onto the proverbial backburner. After all, his film output has been very consistent, and yet this is his first album in four years, following up one that came five years after its predecessor. Not to mention that while 2001’s The Sinister Urge benefited a lot from Zombie toying with his sound, he pushed it a bit too far on his third full length, Educated Horses, and it resulted in a watered down, unsatisfying mess. Here, however, he’s reinvigorated his sound by simply restoring a lot of the elements from his solo debut, Hellbilly Deluxe (hence the title Hellbilly Deluxe 2). He’s still kept a lot of the ideas he’s picked up from his last two efforts though, and much like on The Sinister Urge, the mix works out very well, only here it’s actually better.

You should see the other guy... he's fine. He was huge though! Kicked my ass...

Hellbilly Deluxe 2 sets right out of its gate with Jesus Frankenstein, driven by that industrial stomp he’s known for, but the verses have a strange (and very welcome) reminiscence to La Sexorcisto era White Zombie, due largely to the slightly more complex guitar work, courtesy of John 5. Sick Bubble-Gum keeps the album’s startling energy going strong with one of Zombie’s trademark cheesy horror movie samples, an aggressive, processed riff, and of course his obligatory “MuthaFUCKAH YEEAAAHHH,” which naturally makes up a big chunk of the chorus.

After a very refreshing start, Mars Needs Women settles in with its gypsy hard rock intro (which I’m sure will have more than a few people tempted to bust out Extreme’s Hole Hearted), which shows a lot of the dimension Zombie explored on Urge and Horses. It gives way quickly though, and the song explodes with basically what makes a typical Rob Zombie song work so well – a blasting beat, a heavy industrial groove, and a fist-pumping melody boasting awesomely absurd lyrics. Speaking of which, the song titles are unabashedly Zombie-esque; I know I’m not the only one who heard Werewolf Women of the SS and remembered how badly I secretly wanted to see the Grindhouse trailer made into a deliberate B movie of its own. Seriously, I mean it couldn’t be any worse than Machete.

In the middle there are a few missteps, namely Werewolf Baby!’s blandness and Death and Destiny Inside the Dream Factory’s gimmicky sound, and then there’s the completely unnecessary four minute drumline bit towards the end of closer The Man Who Laughs, which ends only to erupt back into the chorus; because apparently four minutes just wasn’t long enough. Still, What? is a fun, short and sweet single, and part of what makes the middle lag is not so much that the songs in question are bad; it’s just that Virgin Witch’s blues-meets-industrial vibe and especially the powerful Burn, which slightly resembles a faster Living Dead Girl, are too strong to be placed among mediocre tracks without making them look a lot less impressive.

"Why do you have all that fake blood on you?" "FUCK YOU, THAT'S WHY"

For all its problems, Rob Zombie has released a rather consistent and damned entertaining record. The best thing about Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is not so much that he seems to have realized that the experimentation became more to his detriment, but that he’s regained his songwriting balance. Just as on the first Hellbilly record, Zombie has crafted a wonderfully sinister mood, but with the campiness still well in mind. No, it’s not as good as his solo debut, but it’s close, and with him hinting at this being his final physical CD release, it’s a great note to go out on.

Chris Barnes’ outfit Six Feet Under has been rather prolific throughout its career, with eight full length albums, one EP, and now three cover albums, all in fifteen years. As is the case with most death metal bands, of course, minimal progression has really been made, and their later work sounds marginally different from their earlier stuff (partly thanks to a change of guitarists). Still, Six Feet Under has had a few ideas unique to the genre, the first and most obvious being the heavy groove they incorporate into their brutal death metal approach, and large abandonment of high speeds. Another was their choice of covers; while most other death metal bands would cover Venom, Possessed, or some other progenitor of the general extreme metal genre, they would cover groups like Thin Lizzy or the Monkees. After a while, they put out 2000’s Graveyard Classics, which was a well conceived all-covers project, and sounded good. Ten years later, they’ve slapped together ten more covers with Graveyard Classics 3, and by now it’s become clear that this particular idea has well worn out its welcome.

Oh, now that shit's spooky. ...kinda

Despite the clear intention of these covers, they’re played very faithfully, and nothing really new is tried with the exception of Chris Barnes growling the vocals instead of singing them, which of course for this band is nothing new at all. The most interesting song here is their take on the Ramones’ Psychotherapy, for the obvious reason that the Ramones are the only band on Graveyard Classics 3 who are really out of Six Feet Under’s element. It’s impressive that they’re able to take such a fun, sarcastic song and make it sound so menacing; lines like “Gonna kill someone” and “I’m gonna burglarize your home” are taken so out of context that it deserves mention. After all, the best covers are usually those that take a completely different perspective with a song, rather than attempting to simply replicate it.

Still, as mentioned before, the covers are largely too faithful to be very compelling. Even songs the listener may not be familiar with still sound like Six Feet Under, but not; A Dangerous Meeting (Mercyful Fate) and Metal on Metal (Anvil) are clearly Eighties metal, where the Metallica (Frayed Ends of Sanity) and Slayer (At Dawn They Sleep) songs are just that. Of course, this is not intended to be an artistic statement, just the band cutting loose and having fun playing favorite songs, but it just doesn’t feel like it had to be released as an official full length. Especially when they did this much better the first time around.

While Graveyard Classics 3 is mostly mediocre, some covers are just plain bad. Van Halen’s On Fire sounds incredibly tired and boring, but the worst by far is Prong’s Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck. This was the one I was personally most interested in hearing, and it was the most disappointing. The band’s version has absolutely no edge, and it’s hard to believe that Chris Barnes and co. couldn’t think of more creative things to do with this song. Despite being heavier than the original, it sounds strangely watered down, and listening to Chris Barnes imitating the background screams from the original with his own high pitched howls is a hard thing to not laugh at.

They look nothing like any other death metal group. Look, he's got DREDS!!

Not to call Six Feet Under a lackluster band, because as far as their genre is concerned they’re perfectly adequate, but the gimmick of giving older songs a death metal flair has gotten old, particularly as the theme of an entire album. It certainly was a good idea when they first did it back in 2000, but by now (and especially after the somewhat bland second volume, which was a reinterpretation of AC/DC’s Back in Black album) it’s lost its charm, and coming from a band who is unquestionably talented but also undeniably past their prime, it’s nothing that merits more than one or two listens.

Self-described as “future fusion metal,” Danish band Mnemic have indeed had an impressive blend of heavy genres to boast in their near twelve years of activity. The group has done a great job of juggling death metal breaks and metalcore structures against their industrial backdrop, and after how cleverly they weaved a somewhat progressive element into 2007’s Passenger, Mnemic didn’t seem too far from putting out an album that was going to floor everyone. After three years, their fourth album Sons of the System is finally here… but unfortunately, it just doesn’t stand up to their older material. The same basic elements are in place more or less, but it seems that the attempt to implement a bit more melody has not only sacrificed some of the aggression in their attack, but suffers a good amount itself, because melodicism requires an at least passable knack for writing hooks, which Mnemic really doesn’t have.

Awww, they're all holding hands! That is so cute

“Let’s just say it has become more theatrical, more electronic, and just more catchy,” the band said of their latest release. “We have put all our focus on writing good songs and not being afraid of experimenting.” While this may have been their intent, it doesn’t take many listens to the album to dispute this. For one, the band sounds more streamlined than ever; their choruses now feel as if striving for power rather than actually displaying it, particularly in the opening title track’s attempt at an anthemic chorus which falls extremely short (the cheesy outro of “Will we rise? Will we fall?” doesn’t help, either). The Erasing is another example of this; the swirling synths come out of nowhere for the chorus, and it completely mismatches with the rest of the song. It also brings the lackluster production to mind, namely in how the synths and keyboards often sound buried in the mix, and not for sake of deliberate layering either; they simply get too hard to hear in places, and frankly don’t reward the effort made in searching for them.

There are many points in Sons that do work very well, though, and they’re mostly in the album’s second half. Fate and Hero(In) have the older trademarks of more complicated time signatures and better matched choruses. Elongated Sporadic Bursts resembles a slightly electronic, more accessible Meshuggah (in style as well as title), with a great groove that keeps strong throughout. Orbiting, while not the best closer per se, still manages to end things on a good note. The song takes a number of metal clichés, like timed cymbal grabs and fading out with an extended chorus, and makes them sound a bit fresh. Still, while these songs do stand out positively, it’s really only when compared to the rather generic majority; nothing here is as good as anything they’ve done on their previous discs.

Even while waiting for an available elevator.. they're still BAD ASS

Sons of the System certainly isn’t without its moments, but as a follow up to their interesting body of work, it’s a huge disappointment. Too many of the songs sound watered down and uninspired, and even the best tracks can’t compare to older songs; for instance, there is nothing here with the fury of Deathbox or the complexities of The Eye on Your Back. Nothing is really that bad either, but as far as being especially memorable, Sons doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. Try Passenger, or The Audio Injected Soul, for a better representation of their sound.

Marilyn Manson’s new release, a true triumph with strong, resonating indictments of American life, has-

Oh wait, no. No, that review is from ten years ago.

Ba-dum tsh.

After the somewhat somber Eat Me Drink Me, Manson seems determined to prove that he’s still “got it,” and comes out swinging with a good combination of eclecticism and heaviness. The musical aspect is for the most part adequate, but The High End of Low is an absolute disaster lyrically, and it’s really not going to prove anything to anyone other than the lemming fanboys and fangirls who are guaranteed to buy (or at least download) the new disc.

Just.... can't fit this damned thing on

This is what a forum fan had to say in the album’s defense, I’m not even making this up: “I don’t think it’s shit album at all, it’s just different from his previous albums.sounds mature to me.” After this bullet-proof defense, I thought perhaps I had been too harsh in my words, so I gave it another spin. Believe it or not, I saw some of what he was talking about as far as maturity went. Here are some of the lyrics in particular that caught me:

“It’s arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon! Fuck! Eat! Kill! Now do it again!”

“We’re from America, we’re from America, where they let you cum on their faces”

“Wow, wow, wow, w-w-w-w-w-w-w-wow”

…okay, I’m sorry. That’s enough smugness for one review.

The first flicker in faith of Manson’s brilliance came with a chorus that started with the question, “Are you motherfuckin’ ready for the new shit?” Profanity had always been a part of his music, but never the forefront. It was seeming to become more than just a device, and on his seventh effort, with song titles like Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon, it’s clear by now that it’s just a crutch. Even past the ridiculous title, which though he says is deliberately subversive it sounds more postured than anything, the music itself is neutered, watered down, Manson-by-the-numbers. You can almost see him checking off his list, “Excessive cursing? Check. Challenges to American society? Check. Asserting superiority over said society? Check. Dark industrial sound? Check. This is GOLD.”

ohhh woe is meeee

Not to mention that lines like “I’ve got a blackened soul, morals in a hole, wish I was so dead” recall Antichrist Superstar’s Mister Superstar, and not in a good way. He’s become the character he once so venomously mocked, the washed up superstar who was muttering “I wish I was dead” in the background. He’s never sounded more out of ideas; lines like “Forbidden in Heaven and useless in Hell” from Four Rusted Horses sound like throwaway one-liners from his late nineties heyday. Even when they do work, such as on Running to the End of the World, they’re ruined by the chorus’ painful reminder of Manson’s flat refusal to even attempt singing, and a running time about three minutes too long. I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies, another joke of a title, simply meanders and goes nowhere. FOR NINE MINUTES.

Every time I listened to this, every uninspired line, every anemic hook, every wasted half-decent idea, all I could think was, “This is the Manson I remember?” Where is the cold, biting brilliance of Antichrist Superstar or Mechanical Animals? The raging fist-pumping anthems of Holy Wood? Hell, even The Golden Age of Grotesque and Eat Me Drink Me tried genuine (and mostly successful) tweaks with Manson’s industrial sound; here he’s just out of ideas and repeating himself. While on occasion, the music itself is strong enough to carry the song, the lyrics, which frankly could have been retrieved from a Marilyn Manson Mad Libs session, render it bland and devoid of impact; the only crowd this is going to appeal to are the frustrated high school kids who just want to hear someone assure them that their culture sucks, with a “fuck” and a “shit” thrown in for good measure. Even if his creativity is still in tact, The High End of Low sees him simply putting out another album, as opposed to progressing as an artist and making a statement. He was truly pushing himself all throughout his triptych of Antichrist, Mechanical, and Holy Wood, and now he’s resorted to pandering to the generic Manson fan.

Wow.

The Red Chord hadn’t become a complacent band so much as reliable. After their groundbreaking debut Fused Together In Revolving Doors, each release has been nearly on par with the 2002 album with enough ideas to keep from sounding like retreads but not enough flourish to really top themselves. Their 2009 effort Fed Through the Teeth Machine, however, has changed all that. The deathcore pioneers sound as fresh and vital as they have since they first came onto the scene, which is somewhat ironic, considering that this is their first long player as a quartet.

NOM NOM NOM NOM

Fed Through the Teeth Machine’s deceptively slow beginning on the opening track Demoralizer quickly explodes with Brad Fickeisen’s outstanding, pummeling drums and Guy Kozowyk’s dominating growl. It best sums up the whole album’s vibe – in two and a half minutes, The Red Chord thrash away through multiple clever time changes and breaks, while maintaining an unflinchingly brutal attack. Many deathcore contemporaries, in particular their labelmates Job for a Cowboy (who are also currently opening for GWAR along with the band), seem to resort to time signature changes more as a novelty than to progress a song. Here, the fat is all trimmed, and everything still sounds as intricate as anything else in the band’s discography but with an enthusiastic and nimble quality.

The musicianship is phenomenal right through, but on Hour of Rats and Mouthful of Precious Stones Brad Fickeisen and guitarist Mike McKenzie especially shine. The tight songwriting on the former is exhibited with great skill, the changeovers sounding extremely slick. On Stones, Fickeisen sounds more frantic than Cannibal Corpse’s Paul Mazurkiewicz with a precision worthy of The Dillinger Escape Plan. McKenzie’s solos on the song are remarkably soulful, and the way he switches gears from that back to the heavy, chugging riffs, and then the quick shredding that emerges seemingly at random is stunning.

Sleepless Nights in the Compound has perhaps the best groove of all, and closes things out with an almost melancholic yet still heavy sound. It recalls the excellent It Came from Over There off of their previous album, Prey for Eyes, in its near psychedelic character heard throughout. In fact, this quality is cleverly sprinkled all across Teeth Machine, for example in the guitar bending near Floating Through the Vein’s conclusion or the brief break in Ingest the Ash.

What do you mean, "great douchebag pose"? We always look like this!

What makes The Red Chord’s latest so great is that they managed to up their game in every single department. Teeth Machine is intensely heavy, but it doesn’t come at any cost; there’s no sacrifice with the songwriting, the playing proficiency, or even the character of the band’s music, which is ultimately what makes them unique. Every song is as thought provoking as it is mosh worthy, and not even just in the complex music. It’s a shame you can only understand maybe every fourth or fifth word that Kozowyk says, he’s surprisingly eloquent. With Fed Through the Teeth Machine, The Red Chord have truly fulfilled their potential and produced that rare beast, a death metal album that has real personality.

With Mastodon’s recent rise to popularity, it’s no surprise that progressive metal has been a growing scene as of late. Even more surprising, however, is how the burgeoning genre has been labeled as hipster metal; apparently indie kid cliques aren’t the only ones generating music snobs. Baroness sounds like nothing generated from a scene, though – they lack the contrivances and pretensions, and are simply too adept at what they do. Their latest, Blue Record, proves to be standing evidence of this.

"Who the hell keeps throwing eggs at me?" "Heeheehee she doesn't see me"

Blue Record, like the rest of Baroness’ catalogue, prominently displays the mutating of southern rock into a trudging groove that is characteristic of sludge metal, but the style is all their own. While the riffing is outstanding, no song is ever especially heavy, thereby making the album’s sound slightly more accessible without losing any of its bite. Another main pull of Blue Record is just how dynamic it is; scattered throughout are short interludes which serve as great setups before harder hitting tracks. Some, the introductory Bullhead’s Psalm and Ogeechee Hymnal in particular, are slightly reminiscent of Metallica’s notorious epic near-instrumental dirge To Live Is to Die, while the lovely Blackpowder Orchard harks back to early Down.

The musicianship is fantastic as well, namely John Baizley’s powerful and melodic roar (which proves that clean vocals can thunder just as much as a death metal styled growl) and new guitarist Pete Adams’ amazing solos. Baizley is commanding, but even more than that alluring enough to hook you in to his great vocal patterns, especially on Jake Leg. What’s even more impressive than the tight playing and variety is how smoothly the album progresses. The way songs lead into each other is impeccable, especially the changeover between Steel That Sleeps the Eye and Swollen and Halo. The latter’s melody starts out as a psychedelic, almost gypsy-esque sound before the melody is gradually warped to such a degree that it fits in with that of its companion track. From there, Swollen and Halo begins with a twang that hints at Steel before comfortably settling into its own thrashing groove.

The subsequent O’er Hell and Hide boasts nearly as much progression in just over four minutes. The spare acoustic intro quickly gives way to a bruising metallic gallop, which trades off seamlessly with a crushing stomp, linked by the low spoken vocals and an almost danceable beat. The Gnashing and Bullhead’s Lament prove to be an outstanding closing pair as well. Gnashing starts out sounding almost like Bad Company on crack, eventually picking up the rhythm and crashing into Lament, which serves as a great bookend opposite Psalm.

We love to come here and just think, you know?

Progressive metal efforts with so many avenues should not sound this brisk; more often than not they succumb to their own large ambitions and weigh themselves down with overly long compositions bloated with too many ideas. On Blue Record, Baroness show just how good they are at tightly packing everything together in a cohesive bundle. The Georgia-based quartet have produced an intricate yet highly listenable metal near-masterpiece, and fans of Mastodon in particular who are unfamiliar should definitely give this a spin.

The past few years have been good to thrash metal. Metallica and Megadeth released great (if slightly flawed) return-to-form long players, Testament put out their first in nearly ten years (and it’s up to snuff, even!), and while it’s not looking too promising at present, Anthrax is scheduled to release an album sometime this year (their first in six years). And now, here comes Slayer with their follow-up to 2006’s Christ Illusion, their reunion album with original drummer Dave Lombardo. The thing is, Slayer never had the problems their thrash counterparts did. They never lost their edge (in fact Christ Illusion in particular seems a painstaking reminder of that, but more on that in a moment) like Megadeth or Metallica, and unlike Testament or Anthrax, their productivity never came to an almost complete hault, so it’s not as though they’ve got something to prove. If anything, Slayer has been inhibited by only their staunch refusal to compromise their sound in any way. When this is the case for a band, especially for one well over twenty years old, it’s overwhelmingly likely that a new effort will simply offer more of the same, which describes Christ Illusion to a T. Luckily, World Painted Blood, despite its typically Slayer-y title, offers far more pleasant surprises than its predecessor.

See that? That's the world. And it's painted in BLOOD. CUZ IT'S DEAD

An interesting thing about Slayer is that you can more often than not tell whether Kerry King or Jeff Hanneman wrote the music. If there’s healthy groove and numerous changeups in the tempo, chances are that Hanneman penned it; if it’s unrelentingly brutal, it’s likely to be a King composition. And with no disrespect to the man who wrote the poetic line “I’m the one who’s gonna rip your fucking face off,” the albums dominated with Hanneman tracks show more personality and dimension, an obvious example being their string of classics Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss. So with that in mind, it’s easy to see why the mostly King-written Christ Illusion was more of a practice in fierce thrashing metal, where as this album and its prevailing Hanneman songs provide more of a solid metal album.

The record begins with a slightly unsettling recording played backwards, a nod to both God Hates Us All and Hell Awaits, but unlike those two in which this is the entire intro, the opening title track dives right in with with a great, shredding riff, machine gun mimicking drums, and Tom Araya’s venomous shouting still in tact, which is damned impressive for a guy pushing fifty. But what makes the aggression even better is how it’s set up; Beauty Through Order, an oddly appropriate title, shows exactly how well a bit of structure pays off in a metal song. The build up and texture leading up to the intense zenith at the end make it all the more powerful, certainly more so than an outright barrage of brutality.

The thrashers are in unsurprisingly top form, and even offer great hooks – the frantic riffage of lead single Psychopathy Red as well as Unit 731 are immediately alluring. Even better is the slow and creeping Playing with Dolls, a great number with almost disturbing music befitting the lyrical content (a love song… sort of) in the tradition of classics like Dead Skin Mask.

While it’s certainly not perfect, and the songwriting doesn’t quite approach anything from their heyday, World Painted Blood might be their strongest album since Seasons (which is not necessarily to say it has the best songs). There is plenty of the breakneck speed and dark content they’ve become known for, but there is more diversity as well, which just about every latter day Slayer album has sorely lacked.

It’s no secret that Megadeth has always played second fiddle to Metallica (Dave Mustaine himself has confessed this in the latter’s documentary Some Kind of Monster). After all, Metallica has always had more of a pop sensibility, perhaps even likability, and of course a more solid lineup, but that withstanding it’s still quite an unfortunate state of affairs.  The near-masterpiece Countdown to Extinction was eclipsed by Metallica’s shortly preceding self titled (so-called “black”) album.  When the bands entered their mid-nineties creative slumps (not for a loss of ideas, but simply because most of their ideas weren’t very good) Load and Reload were mercilessly slammed by loyalists, while Youthanasia and the surprisingly exceptional Cryptic Writings went largely under radar. Then, in 2004, when Megadeth released the critically lauded return to form The System Has Failed, and its impressive follow-up United Abominations in 2007, only the band’s fanbase really noticed; contrary to 2008’s Death Magnetic, after which Metallica’s popularity surged once again, heralded as a remarkable return to form (which no doubt, it was) while largely ignoring Megadeth’s own accomplishment of this feat four years prior. Before, Megadeth’s only real bragging point over Metallica was that they have never released anything as atrocious as St. Anger (no, not even Risk was THAT bad), but now, Megadeth’s latest shows them standing up to their unconsciously constant one-uppers.

Dude, stop looking around! It pisses off the flies... just look down, like everyone else.

A big change from United Abominations is that Dave Mustaine and co. have traded in a lot of the groove that drove the previous effort for fast, stomping thrash a la Rust In Peace, and the exchange is largely successful. A lot of this works because of new guitarist Chris Broderick, who can shred like nobody’s business. This new talent could well be what has kicked Mustaine into high gear; his solos are easily the best they’ve been since Countdown.

Endgame kicks off with the instrumental Dialectic Chaos, which recalls old school Megadeth even better than United Abominations did with the trade-off solos, trudging riff, and especially the way it leads right into the fist pumping, air guitaring, chamomile tea drinking This Day We Fight! The rousing thrash metal stomp would not be out of place on Rust In Peace or even Peace Sells, with the timing blazingly switching up throughout.

Single 44 Minutes serves as a bit of a breather, conjuring more of the groove we saw on United Abominations, but the blistering 1,320′ (which beats out even lead single Head Crusher as the most vicious song here) shatters the midtempo tone with a lightning fast riff, fierce solos, and Dave Mustaine growling about… yes, drag racing.

The Hardest Part of Letting Go… Sealed with a Kiss is somewhat remarkable too, as it applies a lot of the different shades we’ve seen of Megadeth since 1992, but is free of awkwardness or any sense of being forced. It doesn’t feel like the mandatory metallic ballad so much as an extension of Endgame’s mood, a problem which plagued many a Megadeth ballad, particularly those on The World Needs a Hero.

An issue with Endgame is that while it is indeed a mature Megadeth at no loss for youthful energy (and avoids some of the retread pitfalls Metallica didn’t with Death Magnetic), the songwriting has slipped a bit in exchange. This is a thrashing, well textured record to be sure, but overall it’s a faceless exercise in brutality. Even so, the stand-out tracks are fantastic – Megadeth is steadily getting better, and Endgame shows that they just might have one more masterpiece left in them.

Let’s face it; any band born of another band’s drama (in this case Fear Factory) may produce music that is well and good, but isn’t exactly going to blow anyone’s minds. Sadly, this is the case for Arkaea’s good but ultimately forgettable debut.

Arkaea obviously never watched Captain Planet as children.

There’s no denying that Years in the Darkness ultimately does what it sets out to do; it rocks hard, it thrashes, hell, it even has some good grooves to go with it. It’s fun to rock out to, but being that as it may, it’s just Fear Factory with a few metalcore traits, which makes for a frustrating listen, given the powerful potential. With the opening Locust, which fans were treated to via Myspace (this reviewer is unhip enough to overlook a lowercase s in Myspace), there is a lot of promise; Christian Olde Wolbers and Raymond Herrera as usual work in impressive conjunction, thrashing away with Threat Signal representatives Pat Kavanagh supporting on bass and Jon Howard taking over vocal duties. Immediately, Howard justifies the comparisons to the Deftones’ Chino Moreno and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington with his high registered, yet powerful voice. It is really he who adds the metalcore aspect to the group, which is essentially the only thing keeping Arkaea from sounding like a tired Fear Factory side project.

As heavy and energetic as this song is, the most substantial quality was promise, which is quashed immediately upon hearing the full record. Every song employs this same exact formula, with the exception of songs like Break the Silence, on which Howard does his best Burton C. Bell impression, or the closer Away from the Sun, an out of place semi-ambient piece seemingly tacked on at the last minute. It is not inconceivable for someone listening to suddenly think, “wow, this is a long song,” only to look and see the fourth cut Gone Tomorrow playing.

It has been revealed that at least half of Years in the Darkness had been written beforehand for a new FF album, which is painfully evident not only in its reminiscence to Wolbers’ and Herrera’s band (or former band, the matter of their personnel is somewhat puzzling these days), but more so to the lack of their strengths. Initially, one thing that made Fear Factory so good was not just their crushing sound, but their willingness to experiment with it, which slightly dissipated with (perhaps not coincidentally) the departure of founding guitarist Dino Cazares. Here, we are shown a bare bones paradigm without the trademarks that make the style special, with outside influence added for flair; and regrettably, the Threat Signal members’ input does fundamentally appear as such.

Years in the Darkness feels hackneyed and rushed, though satisfying in the fashion of being a decent metal album. Hopefully Arkaea will write their next effort together as a group, develop more of a style, and deliver on the promise they gave us with Locust; after all, the makings are most definitely there.