Though indirectly, the powers of darkness came were felt loud and clear in other manifestations through the madhouses and flophouses by side projects of Orthodox underachievers MasseMord.  Furia’s Nocel brought both ecstatic religious visions of transcendent beauty, and the crushing anxiety, dread, and madness of a mind not capable of dealing with the consequences of what it has experienced.  It was a fever dream lost in the labyrinths of its own subjective universe struggling to keep a grip on its urban surroundings.  Odraza’s Esperalem tKanewas an echo of tidal debauchery oozing up beneath society’s civilized veneer.  It was rage, rusty needles, prostitution, and debasement of humanity in its most real to life forms.

What could account for these separate but seemingly similar threads of darkness puling at the heart of metal?  It would take band hailing from Germany, with its deep philosophical and occult history to put it all together.  With a learned elocution similar to a Satanic Carl Sagan explaining the cosmos, Ascension musically and lyrically expounds the sounds and philosophy of Orthodox Black Metal as if projecting from Berlin’s reconstructed Pergamon Alter, affectionately known as the Throne of Satan.

There has been much anticipation for Ascension’s second full length The Dead of the World.  Their debut, 2010’s  Consolamentum, was considered by many a genre classic.  At the time there were far less bands mining this style of black metal and it was a little more ahead of its time, if still following the way pioneered by Deathspell Omega. The competition and expectations are much stiffer for an album trying to get noticed just after the majority of many publications had already made up their minds for 2014’s best albums.  The Dead of the World may not land with quite the surprising impact of the debut, but delivers on the promise of quality and atmosphere made by its  full length predecessor and the appetite wetting EP Deathless Light from earlier last year.

If there’s a criticism that can be leveled at the Orthodox Black Metal scene is that a sense of having a coherent and distinct song ifs often lost in the course of the subgenre’s meandering missives on the nature of evil and darkness.  Ascension walk this fine line through the album, and that will probably garner them both more fans and underground detractors as their musical maturity is on display throughout.  “The Silence of Abel” opens the door slowly and ominously, with a slightly off kilter rhythmic base setting the tone and atmosphere for rest of the record.  Just when you wonder where their going they hit you with a blast of black fury.  The nuances immediately come out though with noticeable lead guitar work.  The song transitions to a section making one feel that after being lead by hand down the narrow hallway you walked through to get there you’ve found yourself alone in an immense chamber of darkness.

That feeling is followed up by the aptly titled 9 minute epic “Death’s Golden Temple.” Along with somewhat atonal elements, much like an old Catholic church can grab the heart of even the most dedicated demon spawn with its architectural sense of awe, Ascension show they can put unexpected hooks in their delivery through both structural songwriting know how, detailed guitar flourishes, and subtle but important drum work in just the right places.  Another piece of what makes this song stand out, and the record, are the presence of great lurching grooves that get your head bobbing while the song circles back in on its self.   They smartly reiterate the earlier hooks rather than just tacking more riffs on for the sake of more riffs.

“Black Ember” speeds things up distinctively with swirling guitars chords intermittently winding up the tension and pitch.  The strained nature of that song leads to the satisfying opening chunk of “Unlocking Tiamat.”  At this point they do start to fall into that Orthodox trap of wandering around in the darkness without direction.  They really had the opportunity to bring the steady stomp opening this song back around a few more times to get it stuck in your head.  Unfortunately the path gets lost and the song never quite recovers.

“Deathless Light,” another high point on the album opens with a gripping, emotional section of varied pace blasting.  Great string bends and tempo shifts show they can draw you in a variety of ways.  It may take a few extra turns than it needs to, but this is a great epic song carried over from the EP that shows the band exercising all their strengths.

“The Dark Tomb Shines” may be the catchiest number on hand.  After a disorienting opening, the band gets back to slamming home a simple chug to get your head moving again.  It also shows off some surprisingly tasteful guitar leads.  Throughout the band shows that besides being brooding that they can rock and thrash when they want to.  The catchy elements here show this style still has some places left to explore and a possibility of flirting with wider appeal without giving up its soul.

Closing with the 10 minute “Mortui Mundi,” Ascension bring all their power, their ability to twist and turn,  along with the sense for a good hook, and package it into a memorable epic of an album closer.  A martial snare beat half way through adds a regal air to experience of the album before it.  And what’s that?  A totally wailing lead guitar solo?  Sweet!

Overall, while having some of the faults of the genre, the album is reaching for what’s possible while still operating within it.  The assumption could be made this will a somewhat divisive release, as some may find the tastier elements a little too cloying but others will find that’s exactly what makes it accessible to the palate. An album like this could see the Orthodox subgenre pushing to new heights.  After the strength of releases put out this year though, it’s easy to make the prediction that next year sees it jumping the shark as a sea full of less adept imitators flood the market with more mediocre material.  Time will tell if Ascension can stay ahead of the game in the future, but The Dead of This World is an extremely solid, at times absolutely fantastic release sneaking in at the end of the last year.

Satanic Warmaster has always been something of a cult phenomenon in underground black metal.   They have  maintained and groomed a devoted fan base, to some derision and head scratching among those who never quite got what the hype was all about.  The band never struck me as terrible, with some good songs, but never all that good either.  Band leader Werwolf may have made a smart marketing ploy in this recording choice though.  There is a level of nuance on this record I hadn’t gotten from listening to the bands older material. When going back to revisit those albums after being shocked by their updated sound, I noticed more details that were overlooked previously.  While this record is a standalone statement, the accessibility also acts like a key to unlock some of the dingy melodies lurking in the murk of their earlier recordings.

“Fimbulwinter’s Spell” opens the record up in the standard early 90’s black metal fashion you would expect.  Not bad, pretty good, but nothing that particularly stands out and catches the ear too strongly.  After a few minutes though, follow up “Funeral Wolves” though grabs you with a sickeningly catchy bridge full of midpaced hooks and a touch of keyboards to mix into the tried and true blasting and tremolo formula.  “When Thunders Hail” starts off really promising, and is one of the most well writing songs on the record, but hits what could be a divisive bump in the chorus.  The vocals change from the typical black metal rasp into grunted homage to wolves, and a lorn palace…  and it comes off as pure cheese.  But it’s a sincere cheese.  It kind of makes you chuckle, but you kind of like it, or tolerate it, because by Satan, those are the things we sometimes put up with in black metal.

“Nun-Gaer-Faun” is the real highlight of the album and wraps all the bands strengths up in one track.  Starting off with a slow meandering melody that captures the essence of the early 90’s perfectly, it gives way to a section of black metal two step before an epic two chord exercise in musical tension and release.   It’s surprisingly made it into what has been one of my most played and favorite black metal tracks of the year.

Overall this is a solid release.  That being the case black metal purists find satisfaction with in this record as long as they aren’t going in with great expectations.  Like grandma’s meatloaf, or your favorite burger joint, it gives you what you know, but does it well enough, and with just enough individual character, that you keep going back again and again even if it’s not doing anything all that different from anything anyone else is doing or has done before.

Useless Lucy is JWB’s first album of new material in almost four years.  Present is an eerier approach and quirkier, more unorthodox songwriting lunges than the previous release.  “From the North” casts a menacing shadow right from the get go, chimes ringing in the other worldly midnight hour as guitarist Jason Beickert repeats a few prophetic notes backed by Harry’s doom-y plucks of low-end mantra.  Vocalist Kerry Merkle has a HUGE singing voice, and a monstrous tonality that chills the blood whenever he howls, “Beware of the storm, it comes from the north.”  Drummer Christian Horstmann is the last to make his official entrance, serenely placing an ebbed beat underneath the intro’s damaged ground before coming in with a smash of pocket minded, hard-rock slam.  When these cats lock on, there’s no escaping the crosshairs; you will be gunned down.  The song teeters on the sanity line, walking a high wire act betwixt heaving, doom soaked riffage and pinched, melodic twangs with Beickert squeezin’ the shit out of a sweeping 70s solo and atonal noise surgery.  Stoner rock blazers will enjoy this immensely, but I can’t say it plays out in the traditional sense.

Christian slaps out some agile jazz percussion and cymbal ghosting during the rollicking rocket ride “Masturbation Song” takes you on.  Harry joins in with a bassline fatter than a Christmas hog; the rhythmic interplay staying tough and swingin’ like some of the gritty work peddled by Cain/Weiss.  Jason’s pavement peelin’, squealing lead could also pass for prime Chris Haskett whiplash.  The guitar pulls back for a pummeling rhythmic fill, which gives Merkle his first shot at a hearty clean howl (that turns to a gruff yell later on), with Horstmann dotting the “I” in the form of a manic battery where no piece of his kit is safe from the fury.  When the riffs take hold in all of their distorted glory, the stop/start, broken brake line chug reigns in an early Helmet influence.

The melodic “Six One” has those dreamy melodies of 90s space rock giants Hum and Shiner, heavy and pretty with Kerry’s vocals matching the beauty of the arrangements, but tastefully stretching out his range whenever the rhythms pick up and drive off into the sunset with a bag of cash.  There’s enough heaviness and sincerity to shoot this tune a few stratospheres away from modern radio rock, and the song’s orbit gets pretty weird with Butthole Surfers-esque FX layered onto the vocals in a few instances.  The trippy, hippie lead at 2:40 over Harry’s throbbing groove and Christian’s bustling time-keeping is in possession of more 24 karat than the great Gold Rush…seriously a perfect part that caught me in its voodoo gyration.  Pristine, spotlessly shined guitars in the Welcome to Sky Valley headset open up, “13 Years,” and the rhythm section softly provides support with the drumming especially playing off the rising, aimed skyward vocals.  The riffs are equal parts Iommi and Homme with snakelike melody slithers and a full frontal riff assault making you duck the jab and end up on the receiving end of a barrage to the body.  This combo might just be the album’s strongest one two, and easily JWB’s pinnacle of songwriting prowess.

That’s not say that another favorite “Soaking the Perimeter” is overshadowed by the previous pair of full blooded rockers.  Hell no, it’s another steel toe to the groin with a precision beat shuffle and Harry’s Geezer meets Dave Curran low slung groove basking in piercing guitar feedback before a big, bluesy riff establishes the groove.  The vocals are expressive, in control of some southern drawl, and powerful resulting in smooth, strong verses crowbarring their way into a stash of simple, effective chorus melodies.  A blaring, flatulent horn section brings the boy home, and it’s actually a welcome surprise.

“Ladder and Vacuum” is all about the jagged interplay of the guitar and bass.  It twitches and jerks with Am-Rep unpredictability.  End album sprawler, “Lick my Spacesuit/Family Crest” is a friggen wild ass jam without any apologizes for the eardrums.  The rhythm section never leaves the groove even when Beickert’s guitar derails into total white noise.  Riff-wise there’s more scum-bucket, 70s tendered hard rock than you can shake a stick at with psychedelic flourishes and some chameleon skin vocals from Kerry that are literally all over the map…just pure, badass rock n’ roll form start to finish.

JWB are all hits and no misses on Useless Lucy.  Review listens quickly turned into an instant buy for this old heavy rock fan.  This is a vintage sound with a completely new set of parts under the hood.  If you like your rock straight up no chase, this is definitely worth some dedicated listening sessions.

The band is called Nuclear Perversions. The demo is titled Desolation Rituals. It’s being released on only 300 cassettes and Bandcamp by Nuclear War Now’s ugly European cousin Iron Bonehonead Productions. There are three upsidedown crosses, two gas masks, and a big ol’ bullet belted pentagram in their logo. That’s right, the pentagram has a bullet belt. You should know by now if you’re the least big intrigued in this release.

The intro opens with the sound of sirens, machine gun fire, and the click of goose stepping boots while ominous keyboards moan in the background.   Eventually explosions and more gunfire lead to the radio static of world flattened in the aftermath of glorious Satanic destruction. It actually manages to draw you into the devastation set follow.

“Satan’s Wrath” stomps its way out of your speakers right away with a marching gait and downright obliterating tone. The bestial side of black metal can sometimes get a little too low-fi and blurry for its own good, but the recording is clear, full of muscle and power, without being clean. The band smartly keep it simple and aggressive. All but one song clocks in at just over the three minute mark and there’s nothing too complicated in the songwriting department.

What sets this group apart from some of their bestial brothers is that for all their feral bloodlust, there are some nasty shrapnel chunks just jagged enough to hook you into their apocalyptic war hymns. The chorus for “Crushing the Symbols of the Holy” is guaranteed to make you bang your head and raise your fist to your new leader. “Weapons of Mass Perversion” slows the blitzkrieg pace down just enough for you to really self-righteously savor them rolling the Panzer over your grandmother who didn’t fall in line with the new regime.

Another thing making this a standout release is the vocals. Never before has someone having the balls to refer to himself as Nocturnal Werewolf of Blasphemous Devastation and Nuclear Goatvomits so lived up to the title. He’s got a gigantic roar, but he’s also got a higher pitched warbly yell that really puts things over the top. The closest comparison I can think of is what you wished the vocals on a Conqueror record would have sounded like. In those moments you would swear the doctor from the The Human Centipede just snorted giant rails of crystal meth and Viagra, walked outside wearing nothing but a bullet belt and spiked armbands, howled at the sky, and started chasing your dog down the road under the “Sodomic Nuclear Sunrise” that closes out the meat of the demo.

With only 18 minutes of music excluding the intro and outro, Desolations Rituals manages to add up to more than the sum of its parts. Nuclear Perversions creates a much bigger mushroom cloud than their payload would lead you to expect, or that any single aspect of this demo would lead you to believe them capable of. There’s death, there’s darkness, and they’ll grind you into gravel.

(Bonus points to anyone who knows what “threnody” means without looking at a dictionary.)

Winterfylleth pick right up where they left off with an album that further refines their sound without making any dramatic leaps. They manage to be urgent and weighty without being heavy in the traditional sense. Blast beats and double bass drums roll underneath waves of rich tremolo picked guitar chords and earthy melodies that carry the weight of centuries, hitting the listener with introspection rather than violence.

The clear skies, mountain peaks, and cool waters of the cover art quite clearly convey the atmosphere of the record. After a solid opening in the title track, they really show what they’re capable of on “Whisper of the Elements”. Just before a minute into the song they break into a dramatic section that displays them at their best, with dynamic yet simple emotive riffing laying the groundwork for shimmering melodies that are as striking yet restrained. There’s a remarkably rich acoustic bridge in the middle, which leads to a triumphant sounding build up. Toss in some slightly Bathory-esque choir vocals in the background, and you have what might be the most beautiful metal song you’ll hear this year.

“A Careworn Heart” slows things down and shows that while the band has a solid core of elements to their sound, their strength is their subtlety. The song has the speed of leisurely hike through dense woods, and melodies peak through the dense canopy of guitar strumming like rays of light peaking through to the forest floor, eventually opening up to expansive hillside views.   The band manages to take you on a journey without extreme ups and downs, but always a few curves in the road that keeps things moving with a palpable sense of momentum.

Various branches of nuance and texture extending from a strong core aesthetic is the theme that carries itself through the rest of the album. “Foundations of Ash” adds a touch of vitriol, and Dawn-like epicness to the proceedings. “The World Ahead” is a nice folky acoustic interlude. “Over Borderlands” is another huge, lush, epic that begs you to close your eyes and let yourself be taken away.   “Forsaken in Stone” is a strong closing number adding just a hint of doom underneath jangling chords that ringing out over the top.   Winterfylleth always manage to get you to the same vast landscape they’re aiming for, but like an expert tour guide know how to show you all little attractions just off the beaten path of their sound that makes what could be an okay trip a glorious one you’ll want to revisit again and again.

If you’re a fan of black metal along the lines of Drudkh, Wodensthrone, or Wolves in the Throne Room, this is a band and album you don’t want to miss and should definitely find a place in some top ten lists come years end.

Fourteen years is a long time to live with the same pieces of music. It’s dangerous for an artist to have that much time to live with something and keep fiddling with it.   Those dangers are unfortunately apparent through the majority of the near hour long running time of the album. It kicks off with fourteen minute opener” To Unequal the Balance of the Cosmos”. The song meanders through different tones and textures, crashing open with dissonant guitars and rolling double bass, moving onto soft touching piano, before diving into ever shifting sections of aggression and subtlety. Off kilter riffs and swirling keyboards make up the sonic pallet used in the attempt to create an atmosphere of galactic malevolence. Nothing quite fits together well enough though for the changes to have the intended dynamic results. There’s a decent song sitting in the center of its running time, but the meat of it is book ended by way too much mediocre material to justify its length.

The album picks up nicely with second track “The Figment Undulated”. After a tension building rise to start it explodes just before the two minute mark. Twin guitars pick out dissonant melodies that expertly play off one another. They chime with pinprick feelings of anxiety and discomfort. The airy keyboards drape a mist of Lovecraftian cosmic dread around the proceedings. This song is a real bright spot. It doesn’t over-complicate itself or overstay its welcome making it by far the high point of the record.

Third track “Within the Glory of Other Lights” gets off to a promising start, blasting forward with crushing momentum awash in more keyboard atmospherics. Sadly, half way through is the point where in the process of the musical attempt to deconstruct the cosmos, the album deconstructs itself into near complete incoherence.

While there are some nice sections here and there, the next half hour is a tangled mess of start and stop pieces that don’t have strong enough musical transitions to hold them together. Too often a riff starts, then just inexplicably stops with a new one starting up, or repeating itself without intrigue. Rather than creating the sense of universal chaos it would seem the record is striving for, the disjointed quality creates a sense of an artist lost inside his own work, having spent far too long inside the process of its creation it to see it objectively. Track five, “Within the Void”, at over twelve minutes again repeats the theme of having the potential core of a decent song lost within clanging dissonance that’s neither punishing or clever enough to make a positive impression.

The title of eight minute closer, “The Malevolence of Existence’s Continuation”, becomes the perfect description of how you feel listening to it. It’s almost completely compiled of guitar and keyboard noises that fail to capture the imagination or take you away to anywhere other than the stop button. It’s trying to be a dramatic soundscape but comes off horribly overworked.

While I can’t fully recommend this record, this is a project I will keep a look out for a future release from. There’s a place for this kind of spacey yet brutal symphonic black metal if patience and restraint can be kept with the songwriting. There’s a sense of an artist with a solid conceptual core, but reaching just past what his talent will let him bring to fruition with the impact intended. Still, there are enough unique elements that it does keep me interested to see what this could grow into with experience. The man obviously wrestled with the creation of this and I’m sure there’s some creative catharsis at play just getting it out.  Hopefully we’ll see a new release out in another two years and not another decade.

1349 may be the perfect representation of relationship dynamics at work over the course of a musical career.  At first things were new and exciting with Liberation and Beyond the Apocalypse.  They were raging and passionate affairs.  Bold and aggressive even within the underground.  It was a raw, unbridled love that you wouldn’t bring home to mother, or the mainstream of underground fandom.  But, you might be able to fix them up and make them star material.

Then Hellfire landed like an engagement ring.  It was all that fiery passion you knew in the beginning but polished enough you could introduce them to your friends and co-workers.  It was multifaceted, just palatable and impressive enough to parade around at parties, and the hot new thing you could be proud of showing off to your acquaintances.  You really thought you had something special built up over three years of solid releases you could be sure of.  This relationship was going places.

Then the horror struck.  You walked in on your love, your darling, 1349 screwing Tom G. Warrior in the production booth.  Revelations of the Black Flame wasn’t just a matter of getting cheated on though.  I mean maybe if the album was great, you could have had a nice black metal and progressive threesome together.  Instead it felt like getting cheated on with the most strung out crack whore that ever walked down a stretch of badly lit alleyways giving out hand jobs for squares.  The moment you thought you knew who each other were and were willing to build a future together, 1349 had an existential crisis and left you sobbing in front of your family and friends while they were scoring cheap junk in an act of artistic self-destruction under the pressure of success. 

They came back just a short time later with Demonoir.  It was both an apology and an integration of everything they learned on their sabbatical from musical sanity, but it was too little too late.  Though it may very well be their most mature and brilliant record, as a listening audience we were just too afraid of getting hurt again.  The album came too quick for us to forgive them leaving us at the altar.  The message expressed in its musical nuances and philosophical quirks were more than we could safely feel invested in without being afraid of getting burned again in front of our message board peers.  The album didn’t get the respect and attention it probably deserved upon its release.

This brings us to the current album Massive Cauldron of Chaos that comes after a four year wait.  It’s a long break for a band whose hallmark was exceptional productivity in their early years.  Hellfire was released nine long years ago.  Much as a relationship evolves from its early fire into a something both more but different, 1349 has put out an album that retains much of what made them great in the beginning, but has a sense of control, mastery, and creativity that speaks to a maturity they’ve built over time.  The midlife crisis of Revelations is long past and this is the most straightforward record since Beyond the Apocalypse.  It’s also just as good as anything else they’ve put out.

Much like a long relationship as well, it’s easy to take how good this record is for granted.  I thought it sounded good, but didn’t come out and grab me on the first few listens.  Yeah, it was fast, there were some ripping guitar lines, but Raven’s vocals weren’t quite a scathing as in the past, Frost’s blasting not quite as exciting as a decade ago, and the brittle production of the early years is replaced by what is actually a fantastically warm recording.   Though it wasn’t immediately as gratifying as I wanted it to be, I kept finding myself putting it on, not being able to get away from it.  Listen after listen it just kept getting better, and revealing more variation and intensity that went by in a blur on initial listens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=027yEq9UUeU

The album opens with the bludgeoning “Cauldron” making statement right away about what you can expect from the record.  Trademark blasting and biting riffs tear away at you with the type power you would expect from their early years. The second half of the chorus bursts with a furious riff that’s a statement that the band has not let up on the aggression whatsoever.    “Slaves” sees Frost giving a pummeling marathon double bass performance under solidly thrashing guitars.  “Exorcism” burns with a resentful mean streak and sees Archaon showing off why he’s a vastly underrated guitarist, with an almost Trey Azagthoth like spacey solo that really makes the track stand out.  The band hits again and again with tracks that seem to have a chip on their shoulder.  Frost even gets in on the songwriting with “Golem,” a minute and a half grind blast that feels like 1349 momentarily channeling early Napalm Death.  That leads cleverly into “Chained” which opens with a riff that saunters with a kind of black metal John Wayne swagger while showing confident and skilled songwriting chops.   Closer “Godslayer” displays all the aggression you know and love but also includes textural nuances and layers in the presentation that shows a band that has found a balance between their solid black metal roots and their expanded toolset of sounds.

This is a record that should bring back into the fold those that lost touch with the band in previous years.  Hopefully they can continue the success of this record and build on it without spiraling out of control next time around.

It’s obvious from the start these guys are old school through and through. …or are they?  How old does something have to be to be old school?  What does that mean as metal hits middle age?  When Six Feet Under put out Haunted in 1995 it was called old school death metal, IN ’95!!!  Bands in that early 90’s era referred to Venom and Bathory as “ancients” even though their albums were just a few years old.  It goes to show you how quickly things change and expand during extreme times of musical innovation.

On album number 5, World of Tombs, Horned Almighty take some rough and tumble black and death metal, toss in some punk and rock ‘n roll boogie , keep the energy high, and  fists pumping higher.   While these guys probably love Motorhead’s Greatest Hits, and cover Autopsy to close the album on the digipack,  what I really hear is an updated and beefier version of the growing influence of punk and  blues based riffs that started infiltrating black metal circa the early 2000’s . The most obvious point of reference would be bands like Darkthrone and Satyricon which are prominent influences here.   Maybe it’s not surprising that Horned Almighty’s first demo’s were in 2003.   Are the early 2000’s old school now? It’s the same difference in years from Welcome to Hell to Covenant as it is Volcano to World of Tombs.  Think about that a second.  Are they drawing from new old school, or the old, old school?  Who knows, who cares really, but I’m glad to see death and black metal now having enough longevity you can see the genetic imprints left in future generations.  “Look at you Horned Almighty,  getting so grown up and handsome now, and you got your  Grandpa Frost’s dimples and Grandma Bathory’s crooked pinkie toe!”

This means of course  the album isn’t terribly original.  Everything feels very familiar and if you got enough metal scribes around a table you could probably dissect every riff on this thing.  The most important question remains that in light of its familiarity is it tired or inspired.  But Is it good?

Absolutely!!!  This record kills!  They wear their influences on hand sewn patches, but stitch them together well.  What they may lack in innovation they easily make up for with skill and enthusiasm.  What makes that youthful energy even more impressive is that this is the bands fifth full length, if admittedly my first introduction to them.  It’s also helped out by a production that’s as rich and warm as  pentagram covered flannel sheets.  You can feel all the sandpapery grit in every distorted guitar note, the bass throbs thick and dirty, and the drums punch in all the right places.  I’m sure the vocals come courtesy of some really skinny Scandinavian guy, but they certainly sound more like the collective howl of lighting a zoo on fire.  It manages that while not being overly compressed. Everything sounds alive and audibly sits in its right place in the mix.

If you think todays djent and tech death scenes are all noodles, weak sauce, and no meatballs, this album is for you.    If you’re looking for something more forward thinking, modern, melodic, or avant-garde, you ain’t gonna find it here and can keep on walking.  At the end of the day though, unless you’re Stephen Hawking, you’ll be banging your head and pounding the steering wheel, and even he will be telling the nurse “Get me a beer and push faster bitch” through his Speak & Spell.