Superjoint Ritual - Caught Up in the Gears of Application (2016)
Their first album in 13 years! How about that? Apparently they all found time to come back and churn out more generic angry metal tunes. Phil Anselmo sounds constipated as usual, which sucks because he put out that -awesome- black/death metal EP with Scour earlier this year where he sounded like an absolute monster, but he's back to constipated grunts, as usual for this band. Truth be told, unlike other Superjoint Ritual albums, there are actually a few songs I can tell apart, but they aren't anything special, and even if they were, this is a really shitty sounding album to have come from 2016. The songs sound like demos! The bass and the guitar are weak, the drums are a bit too forward in the mix, and are mixed pretty badly to begin with. The most you'll hear from the drums at any moment are the hi-hats or cymbals being hit, with the kick-drum being basically non-existent and the snare feeling distinctively unpowerful as well. It legitimately just doesn't feel like this could be the final mix of the album, and that I must've been given a rough demo, but nope, this is the product.
Perhaps the most embarrassing and/or awful moment of the entire album comes from "Burning the Blanket", and while I can't understand most of the lyrics and can't find them online, which might be a blessing in itself, Phil Anselmo yells "SJW'S ARE COWARDS!!" which is just.. Fuck, man. I've got my problems with SJW's, but given his "WHITE POWER" shouts and rants, it comes across as Phil Anselmo going back on his half-assed apology to say "YOU GUYS ARE FUCKIN' PUSSIES", and even then, he's 48 years old and screaming about some people on the internet. Remember that episode of the Simpsons with the "OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD" gag? Yeah, Phil's become that. I remember Pantera's "5 Minutes Alone" about the father of that dude who got beat up at a Pantera concert and wanted to fight Phil Anselmo, so the track was a fun little response to it like "come try your luck, motherfucker" but when Phil's going after (mostly) teenagers on the internet, it sounds like he's run out of things to be angry about and is just yelling at people to get off of his lawn. When the main thing behind Superjoint Ritual is anger, and there isn't much for Phil to be angry about, why make new music? Furthermore, why release new music that sounds like a bunch of demos after 13 years? Why do even half of the shit Phil Anselmo has done? Fuck, the world may never know.
4/10
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