ALBUM REVIEW: A Call To Arms – Jungle Rot
It takes a special kind of band to be playing an extreme form of music such as death metal with the kind of longevity that JUNGLE ROT have. The band are rapidly approaching their third decade in existence and have recently signed to the prominent and well-respected modern metal label Unique Leader Records, a testament to how much they still have to offer the scene. Now, armed with their eleventh full-length album A Call To Arms, the band aim to prove that they are still more than capable of hanging with the biggest and baddest in the world.
The title track A Call To Arms achieves exactly what the name suggests, grabbing the attention of the listeners and welcoming back the group’s longstanding fanbase with a textbook JUNGLE ROT track – one that showcases everything that the band has become renowned for in the death metal scene. The buzzsaw guitar riffs are direct and well thought-out and encourage the kind of involuntary headbanging that has become so essential to their overall sound. The Wisconsin natives have once again co-produced this album with their longstanding collaborator Chris “Wisco” Djuricic and as a result the sound is predictably polished and clean without ever feeling too bland and lifeless. This is a skill that the pairing has mastered through years of working side by side and honing their capabilities.
The opening riff for Asymmetric Warfare is one that sounds like it was written for an 80s thrash metal album, and yes, that is a good thing. In fact, the whole song sounds as if it was conceived in the Bay Area in the genre’s heyday, with its stripped back drum work and driving, heavily muted guitar parts. If anything, it’s only the snarling vocals from David Matrise that remind you that this is in fact a death metal band at all.
Just in case there was any doubt that the band still had the ability to go as hard as they used to, following track Beyond The Grave quickly drags the band back into familiar territory in the form of a good old-fashioned death metal rager. The drums are pulverising, the solos are mind-blowing and the pure vitriol that this is all delivered with is something that many bands half their age are severely lacking. This feels dangerous and fun in equal measure. It seems that at this stage of their career JUNGLE ROT know what they are good at and now have fun doing what they do best: creating high velocity, crushing tunes that throw down with the same might that they did almost 30 years ago when they started out.
This is no more apparent than on songs such as Death Squad and Genocidal Imperium. The latter shows some of the band’s more punk/crossover influences with the inclusion of some emphatic gang vocals and the overall infectious down-picked riffing. The atmospheric lead guitars in the latter stages of the song add more depth to everything and showcase their keen ear for melody as a means of hooking the listener, giving them a taste of something a little different in order to keep things feeling fresh.
Even as they approach the back end of the release things don’t seem to slow down. Population Suicide is a surgically precise old school death metal song that shows just how ferocious JUNGLE ROT can be and their penchant for writing mosh pit soundtracks that will create all kinds of issues for venues the world over. Total Extinction offers little respite from the barbarism; as the title suggests, this is no love song and sets about to lay waste to the remnants of the listener’s ear drums with a melee of technically proficient drumbeats and tremolo riffs that all serve as a perfect canvas for the demonic vocals to lay upon.
This is a perfect example of the band that JUNGLE ROT have become over the past few outings. Well written, expertly executed death metal songs that have as many hooks as they do sharp edges. The wheel hasn’t been reinvented here, but that was never the point. JUNGLE ROT know what they are doing, and they do it fantastically well. They have carved out their own following and are looked upon with great respect by everyone within the scene – A Call To Arms is simply a testament to the legacy they have worked so hard to create.
Rating: 7/10
A Call To Arms is set for release on May 13th via Unique Leader Records.
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