Despite being called "Deathwestern" the band's 2022 only used country & western music as a window dressing to perhaps bookend the album with. This time around it's blended to create a more Clutch-like swagger. This leaves the more metallic meat of the songs to groove with a darker energy. You are halfway into the opening track before it kicks you with the same spiteful hard-core punch the [previous album carried. By the second song they are galloping back in a more Slayer-inspired direction, but with big 90s hardcore gang vocal choruses. I was halfway into "Western Stars and the Apocalypse" before I realized it was no longer the previous song. They are wielding similar dynamics on this one, with barked vocals and grooving thrash riffs.
"Birdsong of Death" breaks things up by going into a more country sound. The vocals feel like 90s Mighty Mighty Bosstones, on this as is not just yelling, but not singing either. "Prayer Lips' finds things even more introspective and melodic. This also creates a 90s feel for my ears, as the 90s were a more experimental time for music, so something like a sax solo in this song would have made perfect sense. I welcome experimentation, but think the powerful riffs driving a song like "Waiting on the Reaper" play more to the band's strengths As catchy riffs are their stock and trade. There is a more dynamic ebb and flow that brings Biohazard to mind. A more Metallica-like riff opens 'Oblivion" The chanted hook for the chorus works well.
"Cleansing" is more of an interlude. "Stigmata Scar" chugs to life with more authority. The vocals continue to root things in hardcore against the thrashy riffing. He declares here the only thing he has left is fucking hate, which seems to take a pretty decent pulse of things. "Annihilism" shows more commitment to Country Music at least from their perspective. This might be their 3rd album but the country thing still feels like a work in progress, they have just made more progress on it this time around. I'll give this one a 9.5, which is what their last album got, they are great riff writers, and know that cool riffs alone do not make a song. They are not making the same album twice, and take it in a more hybrid crossover direction. More grooving than DRI and more hard-core than "Join the Army" era Suicidal Tendencies, yet fans of both bands should appreciate this. This drops March 21st on Century Media.
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