Granted, it is very hard for any modern American metal act to show their face without being ridiculed for sounding like the other, Adversary do an excellent job of mixing it up just enough that a single “metalcore” label will not suffice. There isn’t anything new brought to the table, yet just the right mix of many styles infused to make a quite enjoyable record.

Storming out with opener “Hedonist,” Adversary display many Gothenburg melodic death metal influences complete with harsh, almost black metal vocals. Duel guitar harmonies swirl through most of the music with unrelenting drum pounding and just enough Lamb of God/Pantera groove for that American flavor. “Manifest Humility” is very Lamb of God sounding but there is something about Adversary’s sound that is much more urgent and nasty. The aggressive nature of this band is damn near blackened thrash and surpasses Trivium, Killswitch, and Lamb of God.

Clean sung chorus lines add an accessible flavor to Singularity but William Clapp’s delivery isn’t quite run of the mill. The choruses don’t open up with epic sing along sections like Killswitch, so there certainly are no “pussy” sections. The clean vocals are more on the line of Fear Factory’s delivery.

Another positive thing with Singularity is the fact that Adversary doesn’t pull out the breakdown every damn second. As a matter of fact, they just don’t do it. This record is just speed and fierce riff after fierce riff with tasteful solos every now and then.

Singularity isn’t without flaws but it borrows the best of everything from melodic death to thrash and good old American groove metal. This is a pissed off band that displays plenty of talent. I for one am anxious to see how they hold up with future releases.

Anyway, back to Confess. What do we have here, well, imagine an even more watered down Bury Your Dead and deciding that Nu-metal was in fact not the bad after all and bring in some heavy Korny riffing, mix in some genuinely cheesy but more so cringe inducing vocal lines and, finally, and perhaps worst of all, utterly putrid and superfluous electronic blips and bleeps that surface sporadically.

It’s hard to believe but its true, it’s a really, really REALLY, horrid concoction and is living and breathing in my stereo.

To add insult, the most annoying and perhaps disappointing aspect is that the band has talent to write some brutally addictive and destructive material but continue to blight every promising moment with horrendous song writing choices. A lot of the time though, the entire composition is horrible, best represented on the timid opener and then ‘Can I Live.’

Going on would just lead to more subjective butchery, but despite the particulars I am citing here, the concrete fact is that this is not a good record, certainly not from musicians of this calibre who can, and in fact must do a lot better. I accept that bands change, that sounds change and that they cannot remake ‘We are the weapon,’ over and over again, but, they can expand on it, they can push that sound further and make it more expansive, more interesting. Take a leaf out of Napalm Death’s book guys, 10+ plus albums and still raging and still relevant, that’s how a band should grow.

Anyway, rant over.

Sure, they are still fronted by the female Jamey Jasta in Candace Kucsulain with her gruff candence and venomous hardcore snarls, and she is still one of the most imposing female voices in metal, but musically, WOJ appear to have further embraced far more thrash into their sound and lessened the hardcore element eliminating gang chants and open note breakdowns. Of course, this is all in the eye of the beholder and if you heard the Redemption EP or feel the Mayhem Rockstar Energy Tour was a sellout, you no doubt feel that this band has no place being mentioned in thrash.

Still, when I listen to opening riff of “II. The Prey” as well as “A Long Walk Home”, “Discovery of Jones” and “Night of a Thousand Torches”, I can’t help recall the runaway train styled canter of classic Bay Area Thrash. Even more so when armed with Ben Schigel’s (Drowning Pool, Chimaira) production as opposed to Eric Rachael’s more typically hardcore rumble. Of course, the album is still chock full of rumbling grooves and seething chugging riffs, all flocked with Kucsulain’s feral roar as heard on tracks like “The American Dream”, “I. The Hunter”, “III. Shock of the Century” and lone hardcore-ish track “Famous Last Words” making for a dynamic, acidic album and cemetning WOJ as one of America’s more underrated yet confident, consistent and hard working metal bands.

As with “Saving Me” on With Devils Amongst Us All, The American Dream features a ballad in the form of “The Slaughter Begins”, showing of Kucsulain’s moody clean pipes, but I still prefer “Saving Me” as one of WOJ’s standout moments even if “The Slaughter Begins” is a solid, somber album closer. And also, personally, I think the band’s superb take on “House of the Rising Sun” should have been included on this album rather than relagated to the Slipknot unfused Redemption EP.

Well, even if you are merely slightly sympathetic towards hardcore and own a few Hatebreed, Madball and Terror cds in your collection then there is no reason why you shouldn’t warm to this record. Furthermore, those who remember the almighty Buried Alive and No Warning (both listed as prime influences on…that’s right their myspace) will find a preference here as this troupe recreate a moshy, anthemic racket that echoes those bands and late 90s to early 2000s outfits.

Right from the outset of ‘Even Worse,’ that Buried Alive influence is rife (in a good way) as the track is sumptuously ushered in by one of those proper dirty bass lines that made Buried Alive sound so good. Throughout the remainder there is plenty of fast paced sections and crunching chug that will get the floors opening in seconds. The pressure continues to rise through excellent numbers such as ‘The Reclamation,’ (with an immensely meaty break), ‘Relentless,’ and the rousing ‘Bound By Defiance.’

Now, I feel that I am about to enter familiar territory here when it comes to reviewing a hardcore record but just bare with me.

What impresses me is that even though these bands take the same elements that have created hundreds if not thousands of hardcore songs and still make great riffs and songs that sound individual but are openly responsive and respective of their roots then that in itself is a great achievement as sounding original is growing increasingly impossible as each year rolls by. This is precisely what Soldiers have done here, this is an honest record that bares its heart, soul and very often its teeth, nothing more and most certainly nothing less and I think that is the fundamental that has to be remembered when listening to this record and the majority of new hardcore records that now come out.

With only one exception, the 11 seething balls of PMS fueled vitriol come spewing out of the speakers with the ravaging conviction of a coked up cobra; striking, hissing and spitting with precise aggression. “A Trigger Full of Promises,” “I Know Hollywood and You Ain’t It,” “And Hope to Die,” “Plastic,” and “Try. Fall. Repeat” are all early attention getting numbers, making for a wickedly merciless first few tracks to the album as the runaway train pacing is littered with the odd gang chant and slow rumble (no, not breakdown). “The Haunted” provides a sort of mid album respite but delivers a surprisingly catchy chorus, but “And the Dead Shall Walk Again” and “Another Day, Another Idiot” returns to the sonic bolliking.

Now, “No Saving Me” is the exception I was talking about earlier, and yes it’s a Evanescence-ish ballad. However, Kucsulain shows great vocal range and mood, and the piercing scream/peak at 3:30 is pretty fucking rending and I imagine it would be a safe choice for a forthcoming single/video. For those that despise ballads (I personally think it’s a standout track on the album), things are “righted” with “Welcome Home” and the closing chuggtastic title track.

Even though the band now has Ozzfestitis and it’s associated stigma with “cool” metal fans, I expect the ethic and approach of the band to carry them so they continue to deliver hard edged, no nonsense metal.

That being said, The Truth is not a bad album, especially if you are one of the said teens or an open minded metal head not afraid to admit liking this style of music. To their credit, Bleeding Through, with essentially a new lineup from their debut, haven’t tried to recreate the thunderously heavy Portrait of a Goddess, instead finding their niche within the current popular metalcore/thrash trend and they do it well. However, The Truth doesn’t do anything markedly different from This is Love, This is Murderous; the pace is often very uptempo and urgent, almost forcibly so, and Marta’s keyboards give them a bit of a Goth personality beneath the brooding exterior, but ultimately the tracks are a rather repetitive mix of thrashing metal, ballads, breakdowns and shouted verse, clean chorus, shouted verse prose that gets predictable.

Opening with the “I don’t give a fuck!” line of the impressively aggressive “For Love and Falling” (This albums “On Wings of Lead”?), The Truth tries almost too hard to be far more ‘metal’ than it really is-and that applies to the whole album. In fact the opening trio of “For Love and Falling”, “Confession” and “Love in Slow Motion” follow a all to similar but admittedly aggressive pattern that hints at Bleeding Through being an all out thrash band. “The Pain Killer” breaks up the pace a bit with Marta being a little more up-front and the song’s gait being a bit less predictable (verse/chorus/ verse) and angular. But then “Kill to Believe” returns to the albums early, almost forced levels of mixed repetitive aggression and clean choruses. It’s not bad at all, just rather indistinguishable.

There is a few moments that break the mold such as the haunting chorus of “Dearly Beheaded”, the ballad, “Line in the Sand”, Marta’s black metal tinkering of “She’s Gone” and the moody closing instrumental title track, but they only litter a rather uninspired album with some definable highlights. Otherwise, the album is basically the recipe of the first three tracks repeated over and over ( “Tragedy of Empty Streets”, “Return to Sender”, Hollywood Prison”). This may impress painted nail teens and black clad girls wanting to annoy their parents, but for the true metalhead its all a bit superficial and well… faux. I’m not questioning Bleeding Through’s desire or ability, but their target audience obviously isn’t you or I, and I cant fault that.

All that being said, I don’t hate the album or dislike it-I have no real emotion about it either way, it’s just….another Bleeding Through album that will make some noise in Billboard and Soundscan, and more power to them, but personally I expected and wanted more.

The 2004 Orange County show is the bulk of the DVD, and shows the band in their element-surrounded by fans and in an enclosed space. However, while the picture is adequate, the sound of the show is atrocious and the root of Throwdown’s sound; burly breakdowns, is rendered horridly flat throughout the entire show. So the show ends up an exercise in watching various levels of hardcore machismo from the hoodie toting crowd. For a former guitarist with no vocal experience, shouter Dave Peters is a solid front man and had watched plenty of Hatebreed shows, with enough Jasta-isms, (including the haircut) to warrant investigations.

The “Fightclub” theme of the video for “Forever” is heavy on the testosterone but fits the music perfectly and is one of the bands most crushing and message-laden songs for the straight edge masses. The Cutting Room floor material is also pretty amusing, especially when the band pretends to be Slipknot “unmasked” at a fast food joint.

Overall, a pretty solid, well produced and put together DVD that’s a no brainer purchase for fans of the band, but the live set leaves a lot to be desired, as it doesn’t fully carry Throwdown’s massive sound.

Walls of Jericho took all the good stuff from their debut (the breakdowns, the agonized vocals) improved it and took the not so good stuff (the thrashy, Slayerish riffs) and improved those too. The end result is hardcore album of metal fueled intensity that plays like a female fronted version of All Out War’s latest long player Condemned to Suffer. Maybe better.

Yes, you heard me female fronted. Candace Kucsulain is not the singer ‘cos she’s a trophy singer like Angela Gossow, or because she’s scene revered like Karen Crisis, but because her painful screech is vicious, primal and draining. It’s the kind of scream I picture women make when they are truly and immeasurably pissed off or terrified – I mean like “someone has taken my baby” hysterically upset, its kind of disturbing actually. She rarely lets up her vocals assault, and this time the lyrics are penned from a much more personal standpoint. She occasionally lets some punkish clean singing back her snarl, bit other wise she’s PMS’ing the whole frigging album.

Her sidekicks, while a little in her vocal shadow, have upped the ante a bit in the riff department also, the obviously Slayer inspired take on hardcore is now a little more identifiable as its own beast rather than a blatant rip-off. Every single song on All Hail the Dead is either shreddingly merciless or broods with pulsing metal malevolence. And I mean every song. For example, the jerky riffing of the title track is like a train stuttering down a track with carriage off the rail, and I like the way the guitars go from speaker to speak in true old school hardcore style. From that track onwards the album doesn’t let up, from choppy thrash gallop (“A Little Piece of Me”) through perkier punkish riffs laced with strychnine (“There’s No I in Fuck You”), to massive breakdowns (“Thanks for the Memories”), to songs that contain all of the afore mentioned elements (“Fixing Broken Hearts”), it’s a caustic yet entertaining, complete listen.

As an outfit, Walls of Jericho has tightened up tenfold since the sometimes sloppy debut, and bolstered by a gnarly production the breakneck sections are razor sharp and with Candace’s venomous voice, come across as a banshee led squad of WW2 fighter planes screaming in on a strafing run. The album’s best cut is the scathing yet catchy “Revival Never Goes Out of Style” with one of the most rousing riffs I’ve ever heard along with Candace layering her scowling voice with a biting clean voice and its shout-a-long finale condemning the silence of the scene now its become popular: Now we finally have a voice and no one says a FUCKING WORD!

Rare moments of sonic sobriety such as the four minute (virtually epic) “1:43 AM” and instrumental album closer “To Be Continued” (I Hope), still drip with malcontent and rending emotion, the whole affair is pretty unforgiving. The second great album I’ve heard in as many weeks (the other being Swarm of the Lotus), 2004 looks to be headed for great things. Great stuff.