You won't find a more earnest love letter to the art of heavy metal guitar than the opening salvo of "The Eye Obscene" -- the threatening, doomy opening number of
Saviours
' fourth full-length,
Death's Procession
, which ultimately set the tone for an entire song-set devoted to contradicting the frantic headbanging that dominated its predecessor, 2009's suitably named
Accelerated Living
. Not everyone is bound to agree with this agenda, obviously, but this feels like a smart move for the Oakland-based metal-heads -- not least because neighborhood bullies like
High on Fire
and
Black Cobra
already have that particularly unrelenting and carnivorous style pretty much sewn up, of late, but also thanks to the much broader range and dimension it reveals about
' talents. The ensuing tracks affectionately break down and then rebuild all forms of underground metal with great enthusiasm and plenty of imagination -- whether that means borrowing added doom ingredients from
Sabbath
Trouble
("To the Grave Possessed"), or majestically galloping in the name of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal ("Earth's Possession & Death's Procession"), or finally, approaching the proto-thrash velocity of
Motoerhead
and earliest, dirtiest
Metallica
, at last ("Gods End"). All the while, that originally cited guitar worship pervades
and reasserts
' qualifications as, above all else, a heavy metal band, pure and simple, free from endless subgenre analysis and distractions. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia