Cowards: " Rise to Infamy"

Living up to the title of their upcoming a;bum, this band is sure to have garnered  much infamy. There is a great deal of buzz about an album that doesn't come out until February. The album is poured from a vat of very dark riffage. These differ in pacing, and are often dynamic in terms of syncopation. As a whole this is too heavy a place for melody to flourish. The blast beats come across more as ticks than the band committing to black metal.  like a darker more dissonant spastic version of Eyehategod.

Their lead screamer torturers his throat with almost incomprehensible outbursts.His vocal are more often than not layered. Some of the layers are harsher than other, none sung, but vary in the manner the intensity is deliver, sometimes it carries a more hard core element.His screaming eventually makes many of the songs sound they same.

The heavy handed manner the point is hammered home on  "Frustration(is my girl)" makes for more of a dense slab of sound than a song. The guitar sound still allows for notes to be heard. They really love their feedback. The riffs in  "Beyond My Hands" sound like a heavier version of newer Alice in Chains. Though this groove gives way to an unraveling. At other times the remind of the post-Converge world we live as They throw some insanely heavy riffs. You become numb to the beating by the time the album gets to "Low Esteem".

"Wish For Infamy"finds it's groove around the angular pieces of charred wreckage the guitars leave behind.It doesn't stray to far from the overall vibe of the album that is ...here is what it sounds like to set rabid dogs on fire. The most sonic moment on the album is "Bended Knee" , but this slight tinge of atmosphere is tempered with their gritty metallic hard core attack. The drummer is pretty impressive, there is some Dave Lombardo influence that creeps into some of his cymbal work, the double bass is no where near being as up in your face as Slayer.

One of the pluses of this album is these guys don't rely on ten minute epics, the song vary from short bursts to some longer pieces ,though by the last song this album had become a blur as it falls back into being variations of a theme. This theme descends into chaos by the albums end, but really where else could it have gone, because once you get to ten where else is there to go? This album is impressive, but hit's you with one really heavy thing repeatedly after you have already gotten the message. I'll give it a 6.