Judiciary :"Flesh + Blood"

 This album is going to light the kind of fire for hard core/ thrash cross over as Spirit World's album, did last year. These guys are less thrash and more Hard core than Spirit World. They are also decent songwriters when it comes to how they wield the power of hyper aggression. The break downs crush your skull in. At times the sheer heaviness creates a uniformity, that is most likely caused by the barking of the vocals, this causes me to need a few listens to each song, in order to find what sets it apart from the previous sonic slab that was slammed into my ears. The brisk tempos of the mammoth riff battering rams collide with one another. 

The grooves captured by their more deliberate stomps are more impressive to me. This is what makes "Paradigm Piercer' more impressive to my ears. There are also some darker more melodic moments to this , which also give it more of a Slayer feel. Here is where they come closest to Spirit World. They prove themselves capable of writing some head bang worth songs here, so they bar is going to be raised. "Knife in the Dirt" leans a little more in an angrier Ringworm direction, but still finds enough groove to work. There drummer is impressive, in a genre where you need a monster  on the kit to just be average, so he pulls it off in a big way.  Thanks to the relentless nature of what they do things begin to run together by the time we get to "Stare into the Sun". Hammering chugs that don't stop are cool and all but some nuance is needed at this juncture. 

"Cobalt' is not really defined by any elements our ears have not already been attacked with. Some parts are more punchy in their syncopated chug. "Steel Hand God" blasts off in a manner that does not define it's role outside of what we have already heard. It is more punk in it's hard core attack. "Obsidian' feels like more streamlined writing that works well rather than adding more feral snarl to the proceedings. I begin to hear the needed sonic nuance coming from the guitars on the last song. I will give this a 9 since for what it is it is well done, and sounds great, could there be more dynamics, yes, but it is not a deal breaker.Being released on Close Casket Activities.