Saviours : "Palace of Vision"

One of the trends in metal these days is just to infuse thrash, sludge  and hardcore into your own hybrid take on it. Saviours add a more traditional take on metal into this mixture, but they can not supress their punk influence for long. Like many bands of this era they started off as punk rock band, became more profcient at their instruments and metal became more hip so the shift took place. Sure the more straight up rock n roll elements of classic metal are present with the blues based undertones. Sometimes this formula makes for pretty catchy riffing on a song like "Flesh of Fire". This reminds me of when Corrosion of Conformity made the cross over into metal back in the 90s. The vocals become more sung. The guitars are well played and well recorded.

Their punk leanings bog down" the Devil's Crown" , but they get back on track with the metal on " the title track. The vocals might reminds you of older Mastodon. He says something about dying and feeling the terror, but the lyrics are generally just typically generic heavy metal rubbish. This one just happens to have a good chug to it.They start thrashing into "Burning Shrine" and the Mastodon comparisons can continue to flourish here, though Saviours have more of a Motorhead fixation. I can see this band developing a following in Atlanta, due to their punk roots, which is a common denominator most Atlanta metal bands have is they grew up as punk kids. "Hell's Floor" stomps around like a dinosaur, but offers little in the way of dynamics.

The very straight forward "the Beast Remains" has some harmonized guitar runs, but races along the same bellowing path most of the album has, that begins to get a little stale for me at this point in the album. "Cursed Night' is really just an instrumental interlude that fakes you thinking they are going into something doomy, but is just a guitar solo to lead into "the Seeker" which is one of this whiskey soaked album's more melodic moments. It has plenty of riffs to challenge our "cool riffs alone do not make a good song " policy. Not all the hipster's best of lists are going to have Deafheaven on it, some will be too cool for them an include this album in it's place. They have their moments but there is nothing new hear so I'll give this album a 7 and that might be leaning towards my more generous side. If you don't ask much from metal except you like to feel cool while listening to it then this is for you, your impending haircut is on the way as you'll go back to listening to punk soon enough.