By Any Means Necessary
Self Titled
8.3
Make room for the little guy.
While the rest of you have been heatedly debating the worthiness of the elephants in the room, the rodents have crawled out of their cage, and have learned to conduct some experiments of their own. Specifically, the equation of Exodus divided by Vio-Lence, plus the square root of Devastation, times Chimaira. This is proving genius, and By Any Means Necessary are making like the Matt Demons in this production of Good Kill Hunting (Halloween is a good excuse for a baaaaad joke, I couldn't resist).
Three songs in nine minutes. A tiny little bomb of a release, but a bomb nonetheless, and one that I keep setting off into my own face; the pleasure of the continuous shrapnel has become a sickening fetish. In this world of waiting the longest lines of thrash throwbacks do we seldom catch a break, and it may only be a cigarette smoke's amount of time, but BAMN electrifies the flatline of the retro backlash with class: an admirable production job compliments of Scott Sargeant (guitarist; M.O.D., ex-Skinlab), obvious time well spent in the woodshed (wide-eyed at the talent in the fingertips of these young adults), and some ill cover art that is not done by Ed Repka for a change (believe it). So as not to mislead you, it's not really full-on nuclear-holocaust/meltdown retro-speed either. However, there is a slight fallout shelter/Toxic Waltz-ishness surrounding the unabashed Chimaira influence musically, possibly even some Signs Of Life inside (must be the Texan connection). Vocally, pretty dead on Mark Hunter worship, with justice served. This is more the future of the sound of the past.
End result: The anticipation is making the wait for a full-length seem long and drawn out. I want thirty more minutes out of these Texan twenty-somethings, now. That'll be the test of time. As for the few minutes that they have graced us with, it's windmill weather from first second to last. Starting with the unrelenting Suffo-blasted "The Discord Of War" that settles into a hot-bed of strings and thirty-second note kick hits, kept warmer with "Charlatan's" blanket of air-tight rhythm guitar work that would make Gary Holt proud, and ending in a send-off to the woodchipper during "Erase The Plague", where the inner Mustaines and Skolnicks get fleshed out into the frenzy of the fretboard flailing. Very very nice.
The only lowlight here is what can't be heard: The fear that a lack of topography in songwriting will only make for that stick of dynamite when it has a short fuse. But all of that assumption nonsense is just blood under the bridge. Innocent 'til proven guilty. So I say, "Onward!"
