Job for a Cowboy - Sun Eater (2014)

Man, where to even start with this one? Sun Eater, the lesser of two death metal-related albums to bear that title in 2014, and Job for a Cowboy's fourth full-length, is an exercise in variation and ability which at the very least sounds like it required a lot of effort in both its conception and execution. The question is, whether or not that was all worth it? My answer is very, very nearly. This is not a band that I'd ever accuse of having a 'personality', despite the quirky name, which many have already ranted over but at least isn't just another -tion, -tory, for you to file away under redundant. Once they shifted away from their insipid meathead deathcore roots into a more decidedly West Coast approximation of modern, semi-tech death which traced its lineage to all the 'right' acts in the field (Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Deicide and Cannibal Corpse could all be heard in the controlled chaos), they seemed to translate into a more respectable, though still highly divisive act. I've enjoyed a few of their efforts (Demonocracy, Genesis, etc) to an extent, but greatness has ever eluded the Arizona quartet, and despite a very painstakingly wrought effort here, it still does...

Much like Fallujah transformed into a modern approximation of classic Cynic, with whirlwind technicality alternated against a more ambient/jazzy fusion, Job for a Cowboy have done the next best thing and decided to channel Atheist. Alright, not exactly, but a number of times I was sitting through this I kept getting Unquestionable Presence impressions, with some of the cleaner guitar patterns reminiscent also of Gorguts' Obscura. This is an acrobatic, eccentric slab of technical death and thrash metal which goes to great lengths to try and distinguish itself from its aesthetic ancestors, applying a modern studio context to their now antiquated, but once innovative ideas. But like so many other young death metal bands with athletic instrumental skill, it seems to rely a little too much on its own frenetic diversity and not on the strong songwriting chops that will make or break a death metal record throughout eternity. I'm not saying Sun Eater is void of a few gorgeous lead sequences, or riffs that perk my interest, but where The Flesh Prevails became this largely consistent pendulum of ethereal melodies and butchering brutality, this one just never develops much of an identity beyond the 'hey, wow, listen to that' mentality, where you're temporarily blown away by a band's proficiency set and not at any risk of remembering what they are actually setting down.

Oh, don't get me wrong, this one is compelling...to an extent. Jonny Davy's gruesome snarls and growls are splattered all over the polished, punchy instrumentation like cattle organs in some spit-shined slaughterhouse whose death machines are fresh off the assembly line. But did I like them? Nah, they try really hard but accomplish little since he just can't contort them into interesting syllabic patterns. Danny Walker's guest drumming on this is technically brilliant but I found a few of the components like the snares and toms to feel a little too Tupperware at points. The bass is amazing in general, with lines highly similar to those used in prog thrash and prog death classics like Control and Resistance, Unquestionable Presence, Focus, etc, and there are parts of the album where I really felt like I could just listen to Nick Schendzielos isolated from the rest of the band and be happy. But at the same time, it's actually the Glassman/Sannicandro guitar duo which keeps the busiest, and offers us the most contrast and variation between the different levels of distorted excess. The album boasts a Jason Suecof production with Eyal Levi and several other engineers, so you know it's going to have that pristine, clinical 21st century death metal gloss that most of the 'forward thinking' acts strive towards, but then again that's just not anything new at this point.

Effort was extended towards the lyrics, also, but they end up the sort that feel like they're waxing all philosophical about the digital age, moral relativity; poetic and neatly scrawled imagery, sure, but for some reason it felt like a bunch of fancy words strung together which are ultimately as meaningless as taking a hearty poop. But I guess I could say that about almost any death metal band that dares transcend the serial killings, gore menageries and so forth. Job for a Cowboy tried, it's just such a fine line between an actual message of substance and mere pretentious twaddle. I felt like these were keeping one foot on either side of that line. And that's sort of symptomatic of Sun Eater in general: a Herculean attempt to progress and expand one further circumference beyond the burly BroStep brutality of the band's origins than even their last few albums dared. Nothing to scoff at, since tunes like "Buried Monuments" rank among their better compositions, but ultimately I just felt hollow after a few spins, like I was watching some flashy action movie which had a couple impressive stunts but no quotable one-liners like Commando or Terminator. This is more like the last four Jason Statham flicks you caught. Huge, kinetic, smarmy, lots of explosions and special effects, but more of a rental than a purchase.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (my relentless knocking is constantly ignored)

https://www.facebook.com/jobforacowboy

Job for a Cowboy - Demonocracy (2012)

Much has been said about Job for a Cowboy's transition from an admittedly standard deathcore style to a more technical evolution that thrust them squarely into the death metal classification. Some people seem to rue the loss of their youthful moshing simplicity, while others loathe the modern tech death stylings so much to begin with that they're even less likely to accept the band's transformation. Others can't get over how much they hate the name, how the band grew out their hair, how their t-shirts and CDs are available at their local mall, or the brand of sneakers they wear. I tend towards a general rule: if I can head to any local VFW gig on the weekend and hear a half dozen derivative bands with dull and unimaginative chug grooves and overbearing metalcore growls that were more effective in the mid 90s, yet sound EXACTLY like your music, then chances are, you will not interest me. This is the reason I didn't care for the Arizona band's earlier material (in particular the divisive Doom EP).

And this is the very SAME reason that I applaud the band's effort to challenge itself, expand its musical potential and engage in a more strenuous discourse. The path they've taken on the full length albums has been hit or miss. Genesis in 2007 was a welcome surprise, but I found the sophomore Ruination (2009) somewhat less compelling. Sure, the style the band is courting is old hat for fans of technical or brutal death and death/thrash, but I don't see how anyone could listen through this latest, Demonocracy (cheesy title) and not come away at least impressed by the sheer amount of effort placed in its architecture. Riffs, riffs and more riffs seems to be the equation Job for a Cowboy had marked upon their chalkboard, and for about 40 minutes here there is an incessant onslaught of the things, some missing the mark but others driving the point that perhaps they shouldn't be taken so lightly. If Suffocation or Cryptopsy had written this album, with their own respective vocal styles applied, you'd probably never hear the end of it...

Now, I'm not saying I love Demonocracy, or that it's some year end contender, but there are certain qualities that I just can't deny. For one, the album is completely void of the worthless, dry groove sequences that characterize so many artists in this niche. There is always something else happening, whether a lead or another guitar, or something with the drums or vocals that helps keep the music blinding and incendiary. A metric ton of faster paced guitars and blasts are woven through "Children of Deceit", "Nourishment Through Bloodshed", "Black Discharge", and, really, most of the damned album. The guitars are taut, punctual, and more acrobatic than what you'd hear on any of their earlier releases, and the leads in particular seem well plotted to blend frivolous, warped excitement with a more majestic sense of melody. Job for a Cowboy keeps the music so damned busy that the ear is always drawn towards something, whether that's the frenetic performance of the bass and guitars or the rigorous foundation laid out by Jon Rice.

The one area in which they don't really excel musically would be the vocals, but then, they keep these varied up between the louder guttural bark and the higher pitched snarls enough so they don't become monotonous, and they're mixed pretty well against the structure of the music, with a number of effects thrown here or there to complement the brute force. The intro sequences, which often involve samples or simpler guitars that tease into the more complex labyrinth of carnal riffing, are well laid, and though the album as a whole tends towards a speedier element, there is enough dynamic range here to keep the ears perked, especially on the latter half of the track list. Favorites personally would include "The Deity Misconception" which is this relentless beast of a cut which blends dense, destructive rhythms with all manner of technical, clinical chokehold riffs and more muscle than you could pack on a dozen rhinos, "Black Discharge" which thrills with some of the athletic guitars, and "Imperium Wolves" for much the same reason.

The skills here have been sharpened, the lyrics are an average if ambiguous assault on politics, economics, and the media, and the Job for a Four Year Old jock mosh left has thankfully been left behind sitting by the curb. It's undoubtedly a more complex work than either of the previous full-lengths, on par with a lot of the modern West Coast death in terms of its skill level and songwriting, but I think I'd place it just behind Genesis as far as how memorable of an impact the songs had for me. This isn't likely something that I'd find much time for in a month or two, but it's well rounded and entertaining in the meantime, and love 'em or hate 'em, there is no shortage of aspiration. So, in summary: is Demonocracy irrepressibly nostalgic, cavernous and drawn from Autopsy and Incantation worship? No. Is it the stuff of legends? No. Is it surgical, polished, proficient and promoting those similar soulless aesthetics that divide the death metal audience straight down the middle? Most assuredly. Did I just answer whether or not you'd like the record with those last three questions? You bet your ass.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (tonight this adolescent says hello to his ruination)

http://www.facebook.com/jobforacowboy

Job For a Cowboy - Gloom EP (2011)

Arizona deathcore mavericks Job for a Cowboy seem to be very fond of the short form release, having peppered their career with a number of EPs and singles around their two full-lengths. Gloom is just the latest of these, expanding upon the Misery Reformatory single the band issued through iTunes this past April, and I have to say that it shows some of the band's strongest songwriting to date, as the band continues to expand and refine its sound into something more than the cliched, divisive sub-genre from which it first sprung. There are four tunes here, most following a similar dynamic pattern that marries explosive blasting to carefully crafted leads and faster breakdowns than the band have used in the past.

One thing I noticed when listening through "Misery Reformatory" and "Plastic Idols" is Davy's increased use of more tortured, raspy vocals, like a deathcore 'Dani Filth' perhaps. Try not to curl your lips up in disgust at the thought however, because these are actually helpful in carving out any potential monotony from the proceedings that might manifest through the ceaseless and percussive use of grunting. Another is that the band have become simply more 'musical', as with the lead sequence of "Misery Reformatory", where the rhythms guitars create an intrinsic bliss of blunt action as they lead into the great melody at 2:35 over the double bass. Of course, if you are simply looking for your ass to be kicked in ritual brutal death or deathcore fashion, you've got the monstrous "Execution Parade" and its concrete limb breaking foundation, or the acrobatic and high strung closer "Signature of Starving Power" which alternates between explosive thrust and tightly wound breakdowns with a bit of tech thrashing.

Love them or hate them, Job for a Cowboy have done their proverbial 'job' here by keeping the material tense and interesting, with an improvement in personal efficiency and proficiency. The kids can play their instruments, they can take a step back and write something better than what they've accomplished in the past, and even though they're unlikely to turn the heads of the crowd who loathe all things to have ever borne the -core suffix, much less the tech death or brutal tech scenes of modernity, they are succeeding where many others are not. Gloom is not the sort of release I'll be spinning very often, and it's not as good as their 2007 full-length Genesis, but there are a handful of explosive riffs and lead sequences that caught my ears on their continued adventure towards identity. A full-length of this quality with a marginal increase on riffing focus would not be unwelcome to my ears.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.jfacmetal.com/

Job for a Cowboy - Live Ruination EP (2010)

While I doubt Live Ruination is going to be of much interest to even the most beer goggled deathcore maven, the band have decided to release the EP digitally through iTunes for all those that weren't able to experience the bonus content on their Ruination vinyl release. So yes, this is not exactly new material, but helps the digitally exclusive inclined to find themselves on equal footing with the collectors. That said, this is primarily just a live offering, with one exception that took me by surprise: an Exhumed cover! Yes, the Arizona starlets have decided to tackle "The Matter of Splatter", and though it's anyone's guess whether the 2003 original (from Anatomy in Destiny) is even recent enough to be dredged up as a cover, the band do a decent job of applying their mentors' influence without copying them directly.

Unfortunately, the song is good enough that it makes the band's original tracks in the live setting seem so much less appealing. Now, I actually did not scoff at Job for a Cowboy's 2007 effort Genesis, which is one of the better albums of this style that I've been exposed to (largely because it's almost pure death metal), and there are two tracks incorporated from there, namely "Embedded" and "Altered from Catechization", but they don't really offer much compelling evidence that I'd want to see the band in the live setting. Tight and accurate, sure, but it's not as if the material is raving good to begin with. "Unfurling a Darkened Gospel" and "Regurgitated Disinformation" are taken from the more recent Ruination album, and "Entombment of a Machine" is drawn from the admittedly weak Doom EP back in 2005, and though I don't care for the tracks, they're do at least sound consistent live with the better material.

Even if you're stark mad over a Job for the Cowboy, this EP would not be worth the asking price, as the live components are fairly mediocre. If you've got the vinyl, well congratulations, the Exhumed cover must be a decent addition to a rather average collection of originals. I understand that the band is rather 'hot' in that they are able to move records, but this is the sort of release I really hate to see. They could have just as easily dropped these tracks over their MySpace or Facebook page for free downloads and spared their fans the six bones. However, if times are truly this dire, I'll make sure to contact my local UNICEF and send a donation to all the starving deathcore kids.

Verdict: Fail [3/10]

http://www.jfacmetal.com/

Job for a Cowboy - Ruination (2009)

Between their first full-length Genesis and its 2009 followup Ruination, Job for a Cowboy have had a few line-up changes, with Al Glassman (Goratory, Despised Icon) and Jon Rice joining on guitar and drums, respectively. Whether this had any effect on the band's songwriting process, I can't say, but I've wound up liking this album less than its predecessor, though it still stands tall above the band's debut EP Doom. It's not a matter of the music shifting in style, because the band is still verging far more on the 'death' than the 'core' elements of their earlier sound, and the riffs written here remain fairly athletic and complex.

It's simply that what is written here is less memorable, aside from a few tracks where the band flies off the handle to induce a headbanging frenzy akin to several of the Genesis pieces. For one, the album feels mildly less atmospheric. It lacks the cool atmosphere of the last, due primarily to its lack of instrumental dark ambient/industrial/horror interludes. With the exception of "Ruination", the closing title track, it's a pretty straight shooter of modern US brutality which reminds a lot of other young bands like Revocation or Odious Mortem, only with a lot more mosh stomping and a lot less of those bands' high quality riffs. The vocals here are the standard grunts and rasps of Jonny Davy that you know form the past releases, but I would actually say he has overall improved, especially on the painful delivery of the upper register snarling. The band are in pretty fine form...it's a tightly wound and well executed slab of death metal and proficiency. But the last album had a few tracks that seared themselves straight onto my brain, and this just feels like an exercise in violent neck injuries that grows slightly tired before the 40 minutes are up.

"Unfurling a Darkened Gospel", which was presented as a 'single' for this album, begins with the good intentions of a hyperactive thrasher, with some intense drumming and a battery of riffing that falls somewhere between the manic bombast of Theory in Practice and the bludgeoning deliverance of a Severed Savior or Deeds of Flesh. The solo bridge sounds quite good over the bustling, thrashy barrage of rhythms, but otherwise there is nothing here that stood out aside from the obvious competence of the musicians. And it's much the same with "Summon the Hounds", save for the slight grooved edge to its tempos, and "Constitutional Masturbation", which manifests the same mixture of blast beats, acrobatic death/thrash rhythms, pummeling chord breakdowns and low end octave chords, quite akin to something Hate Eternal might pen. There are a few catchier tracks as the album progresses, namely the huge, swaggering of "Butchering the Enlightened" or the spastic bounce and grind of "Psychological Immorality", or the more spacious, eerie environs of "Ruination", but even these do not summon a lot of confidence or add much replayability.

The mix of the album is top notch, with a thick, present bass that subsists wonderfully beneath the dual guitar punctures and the intense drumming. This guy certainly got himself a workout, but then again, it's what most expect out of a tech death metal or deathcore drummer these days. There's not much negative to say about Ruination except that the majority of the tracks fail to deliver a sequence of notes as an injection to the gray matter. It sounds sleek, and may still appeal to fans who just want a high quality mix of punching rhythms they can dance or bang heads to. Certainly you could listen to this and acknowledge it's brutality, but by now this has already done so many times that the songs really need to be stronger to stand out from the massive crowd of peers. It seems this cowboy's 'Job' has gone from a rodeo hopeful to filling the troughs and shoveling the bales of hay.

Highlights: Psychological Immorality, Ruination

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (cast down the frail and throne the elite)

http://www.myspace.com/jobforacowboy

Job for a Cowboy - Genesis (2007)

After riding high on a mass wave of fan buzz, Metal Blade was fairly quick to snap up the young Job for a Cowboy, one of the primary, emergent forces in what many dreaded to label 'deathcore', or what I might deign to label 'death metal with breakdowns performed by mostly guys with very short hair and cool tattoos'. If the countless hundreds of promos or suggestions I've been receiving in the past 4 years are any indication, this was no drop in the pan, and there was no finite end in sight to the flood. Within months, every kid with a guitar and access to the 'thrash' and 'metal' download content for Rock Band or Guitar Hero was starting up his deathcore band, most of which adopted similar silly phrased names as the old 90s melodic hardcore/metal/emo crossover bands were using.

However, something in the dry Arizona air must have taken hold on the resolution and spines of Job for a Cowboy, because their debut full-length Genesis arrived as a stark evolution on the unmemorable rabble of the Doom EP in 2005. No, stylistically, they have not morphed 100% into some pure death metal entity. What they have done here is learned to actually pen a pretty good song. Not only do they incorporate a lot more straight brutal death metal, and set up the vocals better against the weaving bombast of the guitars and drums, but they actually manage to manufacture breakdowns that are simply superior to those of their formative years. Sure, they happen, but the band ensures that something entertaining will always be happening for those of us who prefer the more graceful acrobatic events to the brute shotput of the slam dancing anthems. And they clean up tidily, with 10 tracks in just 30 minutes, leaving no time for the listener to grow bored, simply to wonder what it was that just spun your head about 360 degrees on your neck. Oh yeah, and the cover art also kicks ass...how about that.

"Bearing the Serpent's Lamb" opens with a steady, snaking groove that fires up an amalgamation of later Suffocation and Pestilence, before embarking on a forward termination of complex thrashing carried out by each guitar in violent cooperation. And to boot...there is no childish, horrid breakdown in sight. The groove at 1:30 succeeds in part because of the vocals grabbing the attention, and the busier rhythm of the guitar. And "Reduced to Mere Filth" continues the pacing, with a staggering array of death/thrash over a turbulent, Elliot Sellers battery. "Altered from Catechization" once again drops the frontal thrash hammer, soon evicted for some tank tread, grinding drum rolls over which the guitars never cease to amuse. This is a longer track for the album, at over 4 minutes, but despite the more prolonged, slower grooving sections, it manages to retain its edge. "Upheaval" is the first of two ambient/industrial pieces on the album, and it haunts with some choral samples, synths, and noises before the band erupts back into the milieu with "Embedded", a herald of modern devastation. There is a point in which this song teases you that it's going to involves one of the band's older, shittier breakdowns, but they are quick to relent with a brick wall of tumbling death.

Surprisingly, Job for a Cowboy have nothing waiting in the deeper wings of the album save more of their impressive, evolutionary juggernaut force. "Strings of Hypocrisy" weaves a subtle atmospheric line into the mathematical precision which also gives it the surgical feel of a lot of modern US tech death bands. "Martyrdom Unsealed" is likewise sickening, in particular I like that grooving rhythm at the :30 mark before it transforms into the gloomy octave chords. The breakdowns later in the song playout in a very similar manner to what Poland's Decapitated were writing on their first two albums. "Blasphemy" is the other ambient interlude, and it's quite ominous as it flows into the slow crashing of "The Divine Falsehood", which puts a mystic spin on the old formula due to its simplicity and the insertion of far more atmosphere than we've heard on any track up to this point. It doesn't change much in the 'epic' length of 4:30 minutes, but the band does subtly integrate further atmosphere as orchestral synths begin to swell just behind the churning guitars. "Coalescing Prophecy" brings our heads down from the clouds and just kicks them in with its blunt action, but aside from the tech thrashing explosions, it is probably the most typical and dull track on the album. Not a total waste, mind you, but some of the breakdowns have seen better days.

In all, I was quite pleased with what I had heard here. I'm not going to sit here and gab about whether or not this band has 'legitimized' itself through its Genesis. You can either judge the record for what it is, or bellyache about what it's not. What I'm hearing here is a death metal record, with a trace of the band's thundering boyhood breakdown savvy that just won't completely die. But the forefront here is a blast of powerful, energetic modern death metal with some nice riffing that compares favorable to a lot of the brutal young acts that have been popping up these past few years in the tech death spectrum. So give it a chance. It's hardly an immortal effort, but Job for a Cowboy has regrouped, written songs with an actual direction, and beaten the disbelief out this old codger. Congratulations.

Highlights: Bearing the Serpent's Lamb, Strings of Hypocrisy, The Divine Falsehood

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (a divided population disposed)

http://www.myspace.com/jobforacowboy

Job For a Cowboy - Doom EP (2005)

Judging by how long the hardcore and death metal fans here in the States have been crossing over in their concert going experiences, it's taken rather a long time for a plausible hybrid of the genres to arise. The process began in the 80s with 'crossover', fusing metal and punk music, and then moved along to the later strains of 'metalcore', some of which feel more legit than others (i.e., the caustic post-core noise induction of bands like Converge or Coalesce as opposed to the radio friendly Gothencore soul horseshit like All That Remains or Killswitch Engage). Naturally, it occurred to some bands that they'd rather fuse death metal in with their rampant breakdowns and mosh pit attitudes, since people have been moshing to that all along.

Since no emergent trend can survive without some good old sensationalism to run concurrent, people started calling this 'deathcore' (though the term had been coined long before by a band, and it's likely been around even further back). It's a mutant genre that many younger fans praise, and many of the 'true' metal fans absolutely despise. Whether this has to do with the inbred 'get off my lawn' xenophobia that certain metal heads are won to display whenever other people peek into their gloomy little world, or whether it's through an actual distaste for the music, who could know, and who cares. Deathcore has become the newly divisive bastard breed of metal music, and like any budding genre, there are good examples and bad examples. Arizona's Job for a Cowboy thrust out from almost nowhere into one of the foremost bands in the field, and almost overnight their internet buzz and live shows had set them ablaze in the eyes and ears of metalcore fans seeking out something heavier than the Ozzfest nu-metal garbage and screechy American melodeath they had festered on for years.

The question is...did this band deserve the attention? Well, if this debut EP is anything to judge by, then certainly not at first. Doom features 5 new compositions and an intro. The band wisely passing on a re-recording of anything form their 2004 demo, and suddenly, on the strength...or rather, lack of strength on this effort...they were everywhere. The style here is not a stretch from my previous description: all of the live setting benefits of Earth Crisis/Slayer breakdown-derived moshcore with an added injection of subtle tech death metal. That's what we go for in this country, it is sad but it is fact: brutality + technicality + dance-ability. Are we all fucking meatheads? That's an argument for another day.

We begin with a minute long ambient/noise intro "Catharsis for the Buried", complete with horrified samples, and promising enough that one feels he or she is about to step into either some militant terror industrial record or a guttural deathblast. Well, "Entombment of a Machine" gets that blast out of the way right quick before descending into the rolling double bass and fist on the floor, windmill-kicking mosh death that has every cool kid screaming doooooodddd siiiiccck. The band uses its neanderthal, bludgeoning low grooves to propel itself through several tempo shifts, but they always return to the huge stomping maneuver, for if to abandon it entirely would...well only make the song that much cooler. Make no mistake, there is some proper death metal in here, certainly the sort that would appeal to fans of the NYDM sect, but nothing truly sticks.

"Relinquished" is an improvement, with some solid old school death metal rhythms that actually sound far better alongside Jonny Davy's higher pitched gutturals and snagging pit-snarls. The song is still relying on its weaker elements though, namely the desire to mosh forward through cruise mode, with many a lop-sided, bouncing rhythm to break up what we really want to hear. And suddenly, once the track approaches 3:00, we are hit with this stunningly excellent death metal segment that actually evokes an atmosphere...whether it rolls or blasts on its journey. The winding guitar melody at the end is actually half-evil. "Knee Deep" churns along with a decent old school Swedish churn, but too quickly it devolves into more youth-weary fisticuffs. "The Rising Tide" follows suit. Every time I think it's about to get good, the band has to forsake the destruction for some awful breakdown, and "Suspended by the Throat" just alternates juvenile chugging with the occasional At the Gates/In Flames-influenced melodic barrage, probably the worst track on the album overall.

Honestly, if the band had condensed all of the worthwhile material on this EP to a mere two tracks, they'd have been onto something. But all of the good bits are mired in an obvious struggle for acceptance that translates into an almost entirely forgettable 24 minutes of slugger core that I wouldn't even beat my own head in with a bat to. A cliche pastiche of the many thousands of voiceless American metalcore bands that clogged up their local scenes and venues, now just spent youth. Ghosts of what could have been if they had focused on something other than emulating the early Victory Records roster and their favorite breakdowns from "Raining Blood" and "Slaughter of the Soul". Alas, babylon, alas.

Verdict: Fail [4/10] (the mouth attempts to speak)

http://www.myspace.com/jobforacowboy