1. After The End 2. Nothing Left For Me 3. Anger Denial Acceptance 4. I Want You To Know 5. Murder Suicide 6. The Endless Disconnect 7. I AM Damage 8. Ploratio Morbus 9. Everything Everyone Everywhere Ends 10. The Reckoning 11. Gold Complex (Anger) 12. Motive Method Opportunity (Denial) 13. Exit Wounds (Acceptance)
Spineshank Anger Denial Acceptance
Spineshank are back after a six-year hiatus. They’ve taken their sweet time writing this new record, Anger Denial Acceptance, and it’s been a long time coming.
Artistic differences are apparently to blame for the years of silence we’ve dealt with from them, but if a band needs a reason to take a break that is a good one. Spineshank promised they would continue on and not try to change drastically, and they’ve held true to their word.
Anger Denial Acceptance is solid in just about every respect. It isn’t hard to hear some of the many industrial metal bands’ influences, but they do manage to sound apart from them just enough. There’s plenty of vocal melody, balanced with screaming. The harsh parts are like a war machine chugging through an urban warfare scene, while the tranquil parts are just that–tranquil. At a few spots some electronic sounds are put in to keep things interesting. Each song is very approachable and a few might even be catchy and soft enough to be heard on hard rock radio.
As soon as the opening track “After The End” started, I smiled to myself and thought this will be great. And for the most part it is. Thanks to the album’s production, the songs are so low–end–heavy that a mental picture of your head being crushed isn’t hard to imagine. “Murder Suicide” might be the best example of all their musical tendencies at work. “The Endless Disconnect” is a little lackluster for me, thanks to a chorus that doesn’t seem to fit well enough to work with the verses. “I AM Damage” would be the perfect song for a circle pit when they play it live; the thrash beat here brings something new to keep your attention, and it works brilliantly. “Ploratio Morbus” is the token quiet, instrumental track. It’s kind of fun to know that that idea hasn’t been abandoned completely. “The Reckoning” is much more chaotic than the rest, but it isn’t uncontrolled. However, like all the others, it has a clean, melodic chorus. The final three tracks make what could be considered another title track, since they tie together and each is named after a part of the album’s title. There’s more electronic synth sounds here than most of the previous songs, something the band said they wouldn’t stop doing.
Overall this is a great effort and is definitely worth a listen. If you like Industrial Metal, melodic death metal, or any kind of heavy metal with some clean singing and melody in it, then you’ll probably like this. Even though this style is not my personal favorite, I admit this isn’t half bad. Good to see Spineshank is back and doing well.
Key Tracks: Murder Suicide, I AM Damage, The Reckoning
