AMERICAN ME- III
Single serving metal, this. Expect one potent, effective, but ultimately small, punch and you won’t be disappointed. Originally a side project for members of It Prevails, this Oregon four-piece have gone full-time and full-bore for album number three. There is nothing new in the squealing feedback, chunky riffs, pounding rhythms or feral roars of these 12 tracks, and they take less than 25 minutes to fly by, but there is some smash-and-grab quality. ‘Dark Days’ is a relentless fireball of an opener, frontman Tony Tataje getting his raw-throated point across in less than a minute, a cover of Martyr AD’s ‘The Montreal Screw Job’ is faithfully, violently done, and the supporting cast here is a who’s who of hardcore heroes. The dudes usually screaming bloody murder in It Prevails (natch) and I Declare War are present and correct, Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain remains reliably pissed-off on ‘Submissioner’, and man is it good to hear erstwhile Remembering Never and Bishop frontman Pete Kowalsky unleash some new demons on ‘Son of a Machine Gun Pt. III’. Trimmed of fat and bulging with fury, this is modern metalcore in a small, powerful package.