After hearing and enjoying 'Disembody: The New Flesh', I was keen to pick up the new one from Skinlab. However, after reading a couple of reviews on this album, labelling it 'nu-metal' I felt reluctant. Lets get one thing straight boys and girls, this is in no way or form 'nu-metal'. I'd like to see Linkin Park play as aggressively as this bunch. Sure, this album has some tiny little techno samples in it, but thankfully they are very few and far between.

After the 'intro' (consisting of some uhhh... buzzing...) the album launches straight into 'Come Get it'. Your fairly run-of-the-mill opener, showcasing the bands sound and giving you a taste of whats to come. After this comes 'Slave the Way' one of my favourites of the album. This song starts out with a guitar playing a seemingly harmless riff through some sort of phaser with steve 'singing' over the top. After a good 20 seconds of this, the song hits you in the face with a sledge-hammer. Not for a long time have I heard such an instantly impressive, angry and invigorating wall of sound. But it gets better.... Steve screams and then comes a loud section of doublebass steamrolling courtesy of drummer Paul, proving to the listener that this is infact metal, no matter how modern the fucker is.

Other highlights include 'Anthem for a Fallen Star': A nice short, thrasy number, 'Disturbing the Art of Expression': A very unique, trippy verse section which gets repeatedly obliterated by the chorus, and 'Jesus Cells' mainly cause it rips on Jesus and Religion, and thats always gonna win in my books :)

In summation, if you're gonna lable Skinlab as nu-metal, give this cd a spin first and it might change your opinion. If you are a metal nut however and can actually distinguish metal from that teenie-bopper shit they play on television, then do yourself a favour and pick this little baby up. It is somehow listenable enough to be played at a party but retains that nice 'fuck you' aggressiveness about it that we all love about metal.

This review is credited to:

D. Boorman