Cancer Bats
Hail Destroyer

THE REVIEW

The not even forty minutes that make up the second album of the Canadians Cancer Bats slip by quickly from the first listen, thanks to outbursts in the vein of Black Flag and their disciples combined with a great passion for pure and hard rock, fully present in the six strings of the bearded Scott Middleton, the band's guitarist.

The four guys from Toronto play with great spontaneity, gifting us frenetic riffs ("Sorceress", "Regret"), monumental grooves ("Deathsmarch", "Bastard Is Waltz"), never predictable tempo changes, sometimes bizarre but spot-on guitar solos, brutal accelerations ("Pray For Darkness"), slowdowns bordering on sludge that culminate in the watershed track of the album, "Lucifer Rockin' Chair", menacing and dark, led by a monolithic riff (borrowed from Corrosion Of Conformity) on which the nervous metrics of the excellent singer Liam Cormier are grafted.

The perfectly balanced blend of punk/hardcore vocals, rock guitars, dark and unhealthy atmosphere typically sludge makes the album fresh and incapable of boring; the band knows how to be simple and devastating when needed, showcasing a good dose of class at the right time, avoiding stuffing the songs with solos, breaks, and variations, without relegating themselves to the "verse-chorus-verse" song form, feasting at the same table on the immediacy of the best days of hardcore with the proverbial metal power, smoothed by clear southern/blues references from the American school (listen to the riffs of "PMA 'Til I'm DOA").

Moreover, an innate propensity for choruses to scream at the top of your lungs and bridges capable of completely opening up the pieces (listen to "Hail Destroyer" and "Deathsmarch") make it clear that in terms of songwriting, the band knows their stuff. Add to that a curated but not crystalline/polished production that does justice to the dirt and rot without losing power, and here's an album to listen to and replay at full volume when you want to be hit by a great surge of untainted energy.