There really isn’t a set genre through “12 Song Program”, but one constant aspect of the effort is his very acoustic guitar underneath arguably the most melodic voice in punk rock. If “12 Song Program” were a capella, it’d still be crazy good. Just like his punk rock band, vocal and guitar harmonies drive every song. Just listen to the beauty of the first tune, “Capo, 4th Fret”, where I swear it fits right into “Hard Rock Bottom” or “Keep Them Confused” era NUFAN. Plus the songs always end without any real notice; can’t hide that punk attitude anywhere.

Tony really focuses on stripping down each song right to the bare minimum as an electric guitar doesn’t even show up until track eight, also Joey Cape sings backup a couple songs after in “Amends”. So it’s truly obvious that Sly’s memorable songwriting really is just about a boy and his guitar.

Released February 16, 2010

Tony Sly at MySpace
Fat Wreck Chords at MySpace

Buy this album at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

The Steve Tucker era of Morbid Angel tends to sound a bit more modern, and it’s also an era that doesn’t get quite as much respect as I think it should, and a significant amount rears it’s head on “Teloitus”, from Morbid Angels signature style of tremolo picked riffs, to the strange low-end harmonies, to many of the solos, to the song “Riistetty Viattomuus” which is practically a merging of “Where the Slime Live” riffs and artificial harmonics meeting the harmonic sweeping of “Nothing is Not”, 2 songs famed for being slow from Morbid Angel. Every now and then something slightly different from another band will pop up, like a Cannibal Corpse vocal line, or a Behemoth like riff (which should make sense, since some of their mid-period material had a significant Morbid Angel influence).

An album like tears me in 2 though. Certainly in the world of death metal, bands don’t cop other bands for the sake of riding off their coattails, it’s done under the idea of “doing it right”, so the variations of Morbid Angel riffs do come off as catchy and cool sometimes. However, the baseline spirit of Morbid Angel was to explore creative avenues, and do something strange and different, which Morbid Angel did achieve, so I can’t quite give Sotajumala extra credit for learning the playbook properly instead of trying to invent their own.

Released June 2nd, 2009

Sotajumala at MySpace
Woodcut Records at MySpace

Buy this album at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

For the most part, “Summoning the Wretched” is a waypoint between melodic metalcore and deathcore, with all the familiar mid-ranged barks, d-beats under melodic Swedish inspired guitar lines, a few tremolo picked riffs, a few blast beats, Smith blasts and fewer than usual single note breakdowns. Between that somewhat standard action are a lot of power-chord on riffs that near old-school hardcore, and odd little bits here and these, like a Cannibal Corpse or Meshuggah riff, and non-single note metalcore breakdowns. There’s also a bit of shredding with some quick guitar solos as well.

After comparing the album to metalcore from 2009 and 2010, I have to say that it does sound like The Analyst listened to a lot more real metal bands, real hardcore bands, and old-school metalcore bands, and also wanted to inject a bit more of the hardcore lifestyle into the music. All those are qualities lacking in a lot of new bands today. Unfortunately as well as they do their melding of mix ‘n match metalcore, the scene was plenty crowded back in 2008, and has only gotten worse by now.

Yet again, I have to blame the current state of the scene for it’s loss of integrity from an artistic sense, and sucking the life out of bands who really mean what they’re playing. Maybe in another lifetime “Summoning the Wretched” could’ve been a bit more cutting edge.

Released May 20th, 2008

The Analyst at MySpace
Innerstrength Records at MySpace

Buy this album at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

Warbeast at MySpace

Their upcoming album, “Omen”, us due out on May 4th via Roadrunner Records. The effort was recorded at Edge of the Earth studios with producer Logan Mader (Gojira, Divine Heresy, Five Finger Death Punch, Cavalera Conspiracy) in Hollywood, California. Here’s the track list:

01. Bloodbath & Beyond
02. Rise Of The Fallen (with Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan)
03. Counter Sabotage
04. Jeffrey Dahmer
05. Lethal Injection (with Tommy Victor of Prong)
06. Great Depression
07. Mega-Doom
09. Kingdom
10. Off With Their Heads
11. Vulture Culture
12. Soulfly 7