Kucsulain and co (still the same line-up from 8 years ago), have reverted back to the metallic hardcore, and I’d say even more early Hatebreed-inspired sound of their earlier material (just listen to “Forever Militant” as tell me that isn’t “Puritan” inspired). Kucsulain is even fucking more venomous and spiteful than usual, and the material is just as beefed up as she is (I’m picturing her walking into a Napalm Records meeting with all the corset-wearing sopranos from the label’s roster, and them all peeing themselves). Ben Schigel has improved the production from the last record to make it as imposing as Kucsulain as well.

The music is pure, classic, burly hardcore rage, full of rousing power chords, runaway-train galloping riffs, gang chants, and breakdowns. Not the faux-modern deathcore bassdrop breakdowns though, but classic ’90s, emotional, fist-pounding, unifying, pit-inducing breakdowns. Just listen to the last stanza of pummeling title track,  “Forever Militant,” or “Fight The Good Fight,” and tell me that doesn’t make you want to rise up and overthrow everything. Pure barnstormers like “Cutbird” (dedicated to her brother), “Damage Done,” rousing “Anthem,” and the aptly titled, fucking devastating “Relentless”, are blood-pumping, riot-fueling anthems of pure rage. If kids nowadays were listening to this shit instead of Asking Alexandria, we’d have a problem on our hands and not ‘safe spaces.’ There’s even a slow chugger in “Reign Supreme,” which hits like a Mike Tyson body shot.

As on previous releases (“Saving Me,” “The Slaughter Begins,” “House of the Rising Sun”), Kucsulain gets to show her softer side with a cover of Concrete Blonde‘s “Probably Will.” The album ends with a couple of bonus tracks, including one of the band’s best songs, “Revival Never Goes Out of Style”, a re-recording of a killer, antithetic track from 2004’s All Hail the Dead. “Glory Hound” ends the album with a fucking exclamation point, and a release of pure throwback hardcore intensity which the scene has sorely needed.

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.

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.

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.