Job For A Cowboy
Doom

3.5
great

Review

by Dancin' Man USER (40 Reviews)
March 5th, 2006 | 442 replies

Release Date: 2005 | Tracklist

First off, this a death metal album. There are some breakdowns and traits of other genres, but at it's core, it is death metal. Pretty decent stuff too. Before all of you traditional death metal elitists get your panties in a bunch, listen to this album.

Job For a Cowboy made quite a splash with their demo alone and promised to become a quite powerful band in today's metal scene. While they do lack creativity to a degree (how many other bands are playing death metal grind and metalcore at once these days?) they do what they do exceptionally well. Think Red Chord, similar sound and perfromed at a similar level. This is a band that I feel death metal elitists to tough guys to scenesters can appreciate.

Each song is filled with top notch riffage. Sometimes it sounds fairly generic but it all has a nice flow and has the right level of dissonance mixed in to make the melodies fairly unnerving. The drumming is also done very well. The drummer does a nice job adding in interesting fills rather than keeping each part the same consistently. The parts are interesting and sound fairly technical. The drummer helps this band avoid being a boring breakdown filled band. The vocals are all over the map. Personally, I am not a fan of screams and growls because I think they sound fake compared to an angry yell (a la Pig Destroyer) but this guy does his thing very well.

The songwriting here is immense. The tracks are all in the four minute range but aren't filled with annoying repetition. THere is a nice mix of flowing riffs highlighted by the occasional stop and go. There are no real solos here, but they are unecessary here anyway. The breakdowns are of the death metal variety usually. Fairly short and more like a rest than the dance-off section. There are a number of interesting pauses that serve to trick the listener. Overall, these guys have good ideas as far as how a song should be written.

The mix and production are done very well. I can hear the instruments clearly, although the bass often gets lost (except for that awesome section in The Rising Tide). On the bright side, things aren't muddy though they do sound very downtuned and I really prefer standard tuning all the way around. I feel like if you can make a brutal and heavy record without changing your instrument, you have very serious talent. Somtimes I also feel like the bass drum is running the music and that can get dull. Suspended By The Throat is overall the worst song I feel. It's the song at the end of the set to make the dancers happy. Oh well.

Pretty decent album but with flaws. A good listen for fans of The Red Chord and Behemoth.

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