There are metal albums, and then there are
METAL albums. Some albums just cause you to want to slam
your head against the wall in time to the guitar crunch. The
METAL albums send you into spasms, happily drooling on
yourself as you are repeatedly hit over the head by the music
coming from your speakers. And when the disc ends, you emerge from
your distortion-laden coma, exhausted but ecstatic.
Three guesses how I'm choosing to label Pro-Pain's latest release Round 6.
I don't know why this disc is the first time I'm hearing this band - bassist/vocalist Gary Meskil, guitarists Tom Klimchuck and Eric Klinger and drummer Eric Matthews - but I know this won't be my last taste. This New York-based group grabs your spine and snaps it like a twig, and all you can do is lay there, smile and ask for more. Yup, this disc is that good.
Meskil and crew don't even allow the listener to get seated in their reclining chair with their Zima and rice cakes, instead choosing to get slamming immediately out of the gates. I wasn't prepared to hear the sonic assault of this band and Meskil's vocals from hell the moment I pushed play - but let me tell you, it felt great.
Pro-Pain are all about aggression and letting it out - and for the better part of almost 40 minutes, they take the listener on an adrenalin rush that will leave you jonesing for more at the end. Tracks like "Fed Up," "Status Quo," "Psywar" and "Substance" hit like rabbit punches, and all you can do is beg for more.
Round 6 is good old-fashioned metal the way certain bands (like Metallica - when they didn't suck) used to do it, yet their style is more than pure thrash. Matthews's drumming is enjoyably frantic, but there is more order to this chaos than one would expect - and it helps to cut Pro-Pain from the cloth that lumps many other bands together. There's almost a slight progressive edge to the style of music that Pro-Pain presents here, and it's a more than welcome change to a genre that always has to watch itself for fear of stagnation.
Round 6 is the kind of disc that will send you falling to the canvas faster than frozen waste from a jet airliner falls from the sky. Getting knocked out never felt so good - and Pro-Pain are the band I would want to deliver that musical beating on me.