Holy Shit the new Unearth Record is Heavy....

2004 was the breakout year for hardcore-oriented metal. Poison The Well, Killswitch Engage, and Shadows Fall, and the almighty Hatebreed blazed the trail, but 2004 was the summer that saw As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Every Time I Die, Bleeding Through, Darkest Hour, Throwdown, God Forbid, and Unearth really break into the car stereos, iPods, and bedroom stereos of the average American metal kid. It was interesting to see bands I had grown up with and my own band had played selling out 1000 seat venues in towns they didn't live in. It may sound corny, but "it was a time so full of promise..."

Now its 2011, and a lot of those aforementioned bands have fallen back down the metal food chain, replaced by bands either younger and heavier or older and more "hipster" oriented. Over the last seven years, I hadn't kept up with a lot of bands I knew in that "class of '04", mostly because I stopped touring, tastes change, and life happens, but Sunday I reunited with Unearth at the Mountain View stop of the Rockstar Mayhem tour (also featuring Megadeth, Testament, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Red Fang) for an afternoon of beer bonging, shots, horrible statements, trips down memory lane, and brutal riffs. Needless to say, I still have a headache and looking at beer makes me queasy.

While I managed to leave a lot of my money and some of my dignity at the Shoreline on Sunday, I didn't leave the copy of Darkness In The Light, Unearth's latest record, there (I'm honestly shocked it didn't get left in the golf cart that was hijacked nor in the VIP box seats we watched Megadeth and Machinehead from...Thanks Doug!). I have to be honest, I totally missed The March as I record, so the last thing I heard from the band was In The Eyes of Fire, which was definitely a lot more pissed than their breakout record, The Oncoming Storm. In fact, I had been so out of touch with the band and their world, that I wasn't really even sure of what to expect for them reaction-wise at Mayhem Fest on Sunday. About 40 seconds into their set Sunday, I realized that while I may have fallen out of touch with Unearth for a record, metal at large definitely had not based on the few thousand people going completely apeshit for them the moment they kicked off their thirty minute set. It wasn't really that much of a surprise; I've seen this band get a room of thirty people to erupt in violence. Clearly it was my bad for thinking their crowd response would be anything less in 2011.

Darkness In The Light is by far Unearth's heaviest work. The band has that rare ability to write a riff that makes floors open up in all out bloodshed while being catchy enough for heavy metal radio or Headbanger's Ball. The ability to pummel people with something that can get stuck in their heads is a trait many bands chase after for years but never quite hone to perfection. Unearth have more or less written the handbook in it via this album. Guitarists Ken Susi and Buz McGrath have really set themselves apart from a lot of their peers not only via their ability to keep things heavy AND catchy, but as excellent shredders. The solos and leads on "Watch It Burn" and "Shadows in the Light" are both lightning fast and well thought out, and avoid sounding like a two nerdy dudes testing out gear at Guitar Center. Their ability to work melody into their songs, be it via subtle notes in guitar parts or Ken Susi's clean vocals (which at times are reminiscent of ex-Underoath/The Almost singer Aaron Gillespie) are just another way that puts Unearth in a different class of band than their peers and argueably one of the few remaining relevant bands from that initial wave of bands that broke in 2004. I knew that Darkness in the Light would be a good listen, but had no idea it would be this powerful and standard setting, especially coming from a band who has been at it for as long as Unearth

The band is on the Rockstar Mayhem Tour for the rest of the summer before heading off to Europe with Bane and Evergreen Terrace. Darkness in the Light came out last week on Metal Blade, and is well worth the money. If you want your hair blown back and to potentially get a full beer tossed your way, check out Unearth live this summmer. They are proof that bands don't always fade into obscurity as time goes on.

Friday Evening Mass Playlist 7/8/11 Ruby Room, Oakland, CA

Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused
Red Fang - Wires
High On Fire - Hung, Drawn, and Quartered
Serpent Throne - Wheels of Satan
Wolfmother - Joker and the Thief
In Solitude - The World, The Flesh, The Devil
Big Business - Focus Pocus
Doomriders - Come Alive
Graveyard - Evil Ways
Parchman Farm - Too Many People
Scorpions - In Trance
Judas Priest - One for the Road
Goblin Cock - We Got A Bleeder
Eyehategod - Sisterfucker Pt 1
Black Flag - Slip It In
The Sword - Winter's Wolves
Clutch - 50,000 Unstoppable Watts
Fu Manchu - Godzilla
Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
Saviours - Dixie Dieway
Motorhead - Snaggletooth
Quest For Fire - Bison Eyes
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
The Dead Weather - I Cut Like A Buffalo
Mountain - Mississippi Queen
Black Sabbath - St Vitus Dance
Pentagram - Forever My Queen
Leaf Hound - Hip Shaker
Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
ZZ Top - Tush
Queens of the Stone Age - Regular John
The Damned Things - We've Got A Situation Here
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
The Stooges - TV Eye
The Bronx - White Tar
Ghost - Con Clavi Con Dio
Ozzy Osbourne - Over the Mountain
Soundgarden - Rusty Cage
Torche - Healer
Helmet - Give It
Quicksand - How Soon Is Now?
Karma To Burn - Nineteen
Sleep - Dragonaut
Witchcraft - Chylde of Fire
Mastodon - Colony of Birchmen
Heart - Barracuda
Danzig - Mother
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
Minor Threat - Think Again

Heavy Ass Reviews: Black Dahlia Murder! Job For A Cowboy! Harm's Way!

All right, in light of all the Warped Tour and Set Your Goals coverage, we're swinging the pendulum back to the other end of the spectrum and smashing your face with it. Here we go.

The Black Dahlia Murder Ritual



The Black Dahlia Murder have returned with their fifth record, Ritual, showing us how they from they have come from their debut, Unhallowed. While kitchy, almost ironic slasher lyrics and simple brutality are what put The Black Dahlia Murder on the map initially, those elements are long gone on Ritual, leaving us with a very complex, clean sounding record capable of holding its own among the influential heavy hitters than came before it. Frontman Trevor Strnad has really perfected his vocal attack, with his gutteral low growls hitting the pit of your stomach and his high screams raising the hairs on the back of neck like fingernails on a chalkboard. Perhaps the biggest leap forward on Ritual is ex-Arsis guitarist Ryan Knight finding that middle ground between the overly shredder sounding riffs present on 2009's Deflorate and the less-finesse yet more brutal guitar sounds of The Black Murder's earlier releases. Overall, this record is a banger. We are looking forward to seeing them on this years Summer Slaughter tour, where they will undoubtedly lay the Fillmore in San Francisco to waste.




Harm's Way Isolation



For the longest time, I was getting Harm's Way confused with Hostage Calm. I think it had to do with them playing shows in Northern California close to one another or the fact that when a lot of people I know start talking about "good" hardcore bands I've been known to start thinking about anything else (i.e. baseball, chicks, grocery lists, etc). Oddly enough, the same person who recommended that I give Hostage Calm a chance is also who told me to give Harm's Way a whirl, and for that, I thank him. Isolation is six songs of some of the most brutal hardcore I have ever heard. At times, I am reminded of Integrity, Disembodied, Sepultura, Madball, and perhaps one of the 90s most underrated bands, Despair. What set's Harm's Way apart from their influences is their razor sharp record production and their use of discordant guitar noise and tribal drums that nod to 90s heavyweights Neurosis or Godflesh, but these interludes and breaks are used sparingly compared to the ridiculous amounts of brutal mosh parts found throughout this record. Isolation is a rare hardcore record that has the ability to transcend the sneaker and camo short wearing hardcore crowd and appeal to the metal crowd without going the Ozzfest or "swoopy haircut" route. Cop this shit ASAP.




Job For A Cowboy Gloom



When I first started seeing Job For A Cowboy's name around, it was at a time in the mid-2000s when all sorts of metal and hardcore bands with stupid names started to make the scene (see Heavy Heavy Low Low, Arsonists Get All The Girls, or A Girl, A Gun, A Ghost). I thought there would be no possible way a band with a name like Job For A Cowboy" could be any good. I just expected another band doing what Eighteen Visions or Every Time I Die was already doing an incredible job at. Then I saw this...



HARD. AS. FUCK. Straight up. I was completely and totally wrong about Job For A Cowboy. They were a brutal death metal band, comprised mostly of young kids who, at the time "Entombment of a Machine" was released on the Doom EP, couldn't even buy themselves a beer in this country. Needless to say, I was in from that moment on.

Before we get to reviewing their awesome new EP, Gloom, let me make something abundantly clear: this whole "death metal" vs "deathcore" argument is fucking stupid, and is clearly something that dudes and chicks who aren't getting laid enough came up with to pick on bands that they just don't happen to like for some reason. If Job For A Cowboy doesn't blow your hair back for your own personal reasons, that's one thing. Discrediting their entire catalog of work because it goes against some precedent set forth by Death, At The Gates, Morbid Angel, Carcass, or whatever other band from the 90s the internet is worshipping these days just shows that you're an asshole who needs to stop playing World of Warcraft and mix it up in public. People in this world have real problems. The fact that Job For A Cowboy isn't afraid of using mosh parts in their songs, or that some dude in a Ringworm shirt spinkicked you in the face during a JFAC set doesn't diminish the incredible music this band has been kicking out since their inception.

Gloom shows the band tightening up their sound a bit from their previous full lengths, especially Genesis. The guitar parts are much less noisy and chaotic, and the band comes together, assaulting your entire body by locking in with each other rhythmically behind singer Jonny Davy's disgustingly ferocious voice. The guitar soloing has been upped several notches, and is also highlighted by how together the band is behind the leads. This is a rare EP that I actually wish was a full length. If nothing else, Gloom should silence anyone who is still trying to front on Job For A Cowboy with having an early involvement in metal hardcore.




Go out and grab these joints. Make this summer a brutal summer. Life's too short to listen to shitty bands.