» Blog Archive Snakes and Serpents: Testament, Crowbar, and a Supergroup -
Evan Conway Hard Music, News, Reviews, Streaming

snake-collageIt’s not very often, but some weeks there’s just too many albums to come out with and they’re so to-the-point that you need to give blunt, direct commentary on each one. Running with a snake theme, Testament, Crowbar, and the new super-group Serpentine Dominion all released albums, and depending on your flavor you might have something worth picking up! Ranging from ballistic death metal to crushing, doomified sludge metal, this past week had more than enough to appease your varied or particular taste.

Testament – Brotherhood of the Snake: Thrash is always a tough genre for me to get into because it has to be really good to stick with me. Most of the retro-thrash bands coming back in recent years haven’t been doing it for me, but 2016 seems to be the year they all collectively got it together. Testament’s newest release goes hard, and it’s hard to believe these guys have been around since the 80’s judging by how intense Brotherhood of the Snake goes.

It’s more straight-forward than Dark Roots of Earth, but Brotherhood comes out guns blazing with the title track. “The Pale King” might strike the album’s highest note early on, but there’s still good songs to be found as the album goes forward. While it could have done with some fat-trimming or even slower, heavier songs, Testament’s latest offering shows that not all musicians slow down with age. Good fun all around and a great display of what modern and retro-thrash is capable of.

crowbar-2016Crowbar – The Serpent Only Lies: The band stated months ago that the next Crowbar album would be an “old-school” one, and quite frankly they’re right. Something about the riffing, the tone, and the overall delivery of The Serpent just feels like it calls back to the self-titled and Obedience Thru Suffering days of the band. There’s not a whole lot of new ground being broken here, but if it ain’t broken then there’s no need to fix it.

Basically what you’ve got here are ten songs that have a single mission of crushing you with each given moment. Opening track “Falling While Rising” sets the tone, while “ I Am the Storm” pushes the tempo to change things up early on. Particularly, I like the more ambient, composed “Song of the Dunes” that comes later in the album, which users in a tight closer with “As I Heal.” All in all, if you either like Crowbar already or are interested in getting into the band, this is the place to start.

serpentine-dominion-line-upSerpentine Dominion – Serpentine Dominion: Holy hell, this is a furious album. Teased for months now, this is the product of Killswitch Engage’s Adam D., Cannibal Corpse’s Corpsegrinder, and ex-The Black Dahlia Murder’s Shannon Lucas coming together and just letting loose entirely. It’s a short endeavor, roughly 25-minutes long, but it definitely has leaves a lasting impression. In particular, once the speed kicks in on “The Vengeance in Me,” you know it’s hit the fan by now.

While Corpsegrinder is the primary vocalist, Adam contributes to some clean vocals into the mix, which may be the deciding factor for most of the listeners coming for balls-to-the-wall death metal or some metalcore undertones. Admittedly, it does clearly sound like Adam’s playing, having listened to enough Killswitch Engage in my time, which seems odd at times with Corpsegrinder blaring over them. However if you can take the melody and fancy some great musicianship all around in a short burst, Serpentine Dominion will give you just that.

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