No Trust : "The Cycle"

This California band is often more death metal than not there is a slight black metal torment to the vocals mid range throat scraping, but the riffs are firmly locked in and they attack as a very keen machine. The songs are compact. Most run around four minutes so they get in and get the job done without losing you in the sprawl. The rasped vocals are very clear and the lyrics are generally out from. They build speed out of the steady double bass of " Circle of the Sky". they sometimes lock into catchy taunt rifffs that can be very Tool like. Though they have some very defined riffs some of the songs started to run together mid way through or I started to zone out, so I went back and gave "Nothing Remains" a more solid second listen. The riffs are mean with a slight tinge of Eyehategod with a more prog sensiblity when it comes to grooves. Since this is the case sludge is a fair genre to say this intersects with death metal, often making it hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.

There is also a little Meshuggah mixed in though nothing like djent. They retain enough of the raw death metal sound to give the tightly coiled progressive metal influence more bite than it normally possesses , but always finding a way to work in catchy grooves. The guitar winds into some more melodic guitar on "Light Fades" which contrasts the churning flow of the more metallic undercurrent. There is a pounding yet catchy chug to "Host Body". This song conforms more to what headbangers would want from modern death metal, the band doesn't owe much to the more classic death metal bands like Morbid Angel, I can hear touches of Slayer mixed in, however at the same time there is not the cheese element that comes with the whole death core thing . They close the album with the throb of "Wolves" at six and a half minutes this is the album's longest song. It slows the pace down dramatically from the momentum the album had already gathered by going into this darker creep. The pace picks up at the four minute mark, the more bare bones double bass hit before the build sounded a little thin , but it is the first kink I have heard in what is other wise solid production. I also think they are premature at letting the feed back ring out to end this one since it is the last song without a bigger finish it seems anti climatic after kicking so much ass the rest of the album.

Overall this is a solid listen that is dark and heavy, but fun to listen to due to its sense of groove, look forward to hearing more from these guys , if you like heavy music that is still song friendly and doesn't go to the furthest extreme check these guys out. I am giving this one a 9.