You
can call this a kind of super group with Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape
Plan), Max Cavalera (Soulfy, Cavalera Conspiracy), Dave Elith (ex-The Mars
Volta) and last but not least Troy Sanders (Mastodon). What to expect? - well
their music sounds indeed a bit like a mix of the bands they play or have played
for, but more than that. With triple vocal perfomances of Greg, Max and Troy the
music sounds very variable.
The
first songs start very melodic and in the middle, when Max opens his mouth, it
has a small Soulfly kind of piece. The songs are very melodic in general and
Greg and Troy take care of the melodic and futuristic singing pieces. The
contrast of the brutal vocals by Max with the more melodic and cleaner singing
of the other two never sounds forced, but very natural. A lot of styles can be
heard in the songs, bits of hardcore, some thrash riffs and even some slower
doomier parts. The biggest success for me however is the song writing.
The songs sound very accessible although there are a lot of heavy parts as well.
It never sounds like some pieces of different styles put together. Every song
counts and some beautiful choruses and clean singing parts make it complete.
"Snakes
of Jehova" is an excellent example of how aggression and melody go hand in hand.
A thrash piece, harsh shouting, clean singing (a bit in Fear Factory style),
very fast pieces with sublime tight drumming make this one of the heaviest
songs. Immediately a song like "Curb Crusher" starts with a certain groove and
this is again one of the faster tracks. With "Save the Robots" they serve a
slower and more melodic track, but again with some heavy pieces. In "Fire to
Your Flag" there are some similarities with Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy, but
still different. The changing from heavy into melodic and vice versa makes this
a very complete album.
A
lot of times super groups can't deliver what you expect, but this time they
bring more than that. An album with synergy.
