With the untimely passing of founding vocalist
Paul Baloff
in 2002, and the subsequent, short-lived reunion with his original successor,
Steve Zetro Souza
, for 2004's acclaimed comeback LP,
Tempo of the Damned
, Bay Area thrash metal kings
Exodus
were forced to audition a new frontman for the first time in 20 years before moving on with their resuscitated career.
Rob Dukes
, a relative unknown, was duly hired and thrown almost immediately to the mosh pit wolves via 2006's
Shovel Headed Kill Machine
-- acquitting himself rather well thanks to his vocal and temperamental similarities to his predecessors, as well as the reliable ultra-thrash high standards of that album's songwriting, overseen as ever by
' longstanding creative leader, guitarist
Gary Holt
. But, when the time came for the rookie singer's sophomore outing as
' mouth-of-war, 2007's tellingly titled
The Atrocity Exhibition
(the group's eighth studio album overall),
Dukes
was handed a far more challenging homework assignment by taskmaster
Holt
involving by some of the deepest and most thought-provoking lyrics of the band's career, not to mention their most musically ambitious and eclectic collection of songs since 1992's underrated
Force of Habit
. Yet, rather than following that album's fatal mistake of discarding some of the band's most defining bludgeoning thrash sounds,
Atrocity
endeavored to tie the album's songs together with a loosely conceptual theme centered around religiously motivated strife and warfare, as well as slower tempos, while taking advantage of
' ability to sing melodically and incorporate additional flavors amid those signature thrash attributes. Taken as whole, the end results may well qualify as
' personal
Master of Puppets
(possibly inspired by
Machine Head
's similarly emboldened
The Blackening
CD, released just a few months prior), as familiarly single-minded speed thrashers like
"Riot Act"
and
"Bedlam 1-2-3"
simply bookend a slew of multi-faceted epics of unprecedented instrumental and dynamic diversity like
"Funeral Hymn,"
"Iconoclasm,"
and the ten-minute title track itself. Sure, first generation fans may still view
' alternating clean and dirty vocals on
"Children of a Worthless God"
as no small travesty, but the fact is the strategy works in the context of the song's emotionally charged message, and -- let's face it -- makes for another welcome talking point. Finally, the return of founding drummer
Tom Hunting
may help old-school fans cope with these experiments, since, like
Dave Lombardo
for
Slayer
or
Phil Rudd
AC/DC
,
never sound quite right without him and his personal combination of sheer chops, untold power, and all-important "feel." And, like it or not, into every long-term career, change and risk-taking must come sometimes, and, given a few more years (not least for
to further establish himself), one feels that
will stand up as one of
' deepest, and most intriguing albums. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia