Review Summary: Another product of the assembly line, but with very minor components
Job For A Cowboy’s debut, ‘Genesis’ is something I'd describe as similar to the customs of the Wild West. Born in the depths of Arizona. This death metal group started out with an EP entitled, ‘Doom’. After that, ‘Genesis’ was created, and it feels like a bone breaking rodeo ride; but despite some head bobbing moments, it can still feel tame at times notice, due to its ordinary nature. But the lack of spice up is reclaimed with its ear-candy riffs, and nice, heavy vocal patterns. The standard for this genre consists of extreme up-tempo guitar and drums followed by a heavy vocal style of singing. Expect this kind of sound entering ‘Genesis’.
This type of music is very technical. Guitar solos come and go, but when they appear, it adds a sweet dynamic to the tunes, perfectly displayed a minute and a half onto the second track, ‘Reduced To Mere Filth’. Without them, listening to the record would feel ordinarily uninteresting. Though the axemen create some decent memorable riffs, it's the solos that peaked my interest. Good job on the guitar department. Keep in mind that the fourth track, ‘Upheaval’ is an instrumental with no vocals featured, so don't be confused like I was upon first listen.
The word genesis is the name of the first books of the bible. This could explain some of the lyric writing process. Unless you have good ears, it's not easy to decipher what the frontman is yelling about without the lyric sheet in front of you. Despite this, the vocalist has a strong, deep voice, which adds to the heaviness in a great way. In spite of this, the lyric approach is not one of the reasons to give this debut LP a spin. The vocals are strong in this on, and is the clear-cut redeeming factor of ‘Genesis’. The guitar backdrops and the muscled vocals bump the album rating highly. Unfortunately my rating policies are limited, forcing a score of a 3 instead of a 3.3.
All in all, ‘Genesis’ is an average-to-great death metal record worth a shot every once in a while. With its heavy hitting nature, it's good enough for any metal loving headbanger. This is everything expected from a genre like this. Sometimes, that's all you could ask for. What do you call animals that live inside of fences in fear of wolves? Most would think of cattle. For the most part, the modern day deathcore/death metal scene definitely has its fair share of generic cattle. But at the same time, tending the cattle differently may cause one to be thrown into a hungry pack of wolves. In turn, most bands usually stay within the fence border, away from outside territory. Did the Arizona death metal band manage to survive outside of the fence and live to tell the tale? In my opinion, I think they did, and it's a story worth telling.
