From the moment the stomping, early-Lamb Of God groove of Nero kicks things off on these Denver groove metallers’ second full-length, you pretty much know what’s in store.
The galloping, staccato guitars and one-dimensional, rasping delivery from Dustin Griboski makes up the bulk of the album as every samey groove and breakdown-filled track starts to meld into another.
The melodic opening moments of Violent Colors at least contain some dynamics before reverting to the all-too-familiar formula. With that said, it’s still difficult to find anything that’s particularly bad here. It’s tighly performed on the whole and a razor-sharp modern production courtesy of Megadeth’s David Ellefson, along with some strong rhythm work, certainly brings a fair punch to proceedings. It’ll certainly have no trouble whipping up pits either – it’s just that on record at least, it’s all just too nondescript to make you really care.
