Ahh!

What the…

I was about ready to yank the tape out and then I realize it's just some stupid quirky introduction to the record!

Dammit…

I love the cover art-this very well endowed flaxen-haired seductress, tail in full view, amidst a wall of flames…

I'll tell ya what, if going to Hell's gonna be anything like this, repentance can go take a piss in the wind cause it ain't happening!

This looks, feels and sounds like a pretty well-produced demo of sorts-self-produced, released… you know the whole underground thing, and so far not half bad.

These guys are wholly into the pit with this thing…

Pantera meets something like Stuck Mojo maybe-fierce, throaty and completely tone deaf!

They got the rap-core thing going a little bit here too-I can hear it on "Trip," song two, and then the growls and screams take effect over a crackling kick drum that sounds like a round of firecrackers going off in the distance!

I hear a lot more influences here too, not just your atypical nu-metal hatebreed, vengeance against the world nihilism…

Tune three "Rose of Thorn…"

"Rose of Thorn?"

Okay… begins quietly, very subdued, almost dare I say like a ballad-again pointing to those rarities when Dimebag and the gang conjure up their comedown and the gates creep open, ya know?

I like it when the tune gets past the verse and breaks into the chorus, very amped and an interesting below the surface character led by a flange-like guitar effect!

Great tune, and it gets changes tempo often enough where you're looking ahead to see at which point you blacked out and missed the other five…

"My Drug" is their calling card it seems-very Type O'ish actually, almost joke-like with that opening groove-kind of a wanker of a tune before blasting away in a double-bass shellacking and then back again to that slow grind… interesting!

I like these guys enough to give 'em good marks here-and that's based mainly on the fact that each song captures its own personality without wandering aimlessly in an unsatisfying mess of mediocrity…

At this point the production is getting on my nerves, I mean, I keep reaching to clean out my ear thinking I got some foreign matter lodged in there preventing the treble from arriving at its ultimate destination…

But I'll get over it-but now we got this room full of people whispering and chanting and what's this… "Peace Out?"

Okay, now I know I'm in trouble!

Independent Release

Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu]