Jugulur � Planet Dead (EP) 
Label: Sore Throat Music
Rating: 
 

I've been a fan of Jugulur since the first time I saw them live and they kicked my ass. This isn't another nu-metal band out trying to jump on the popular bandwagon, these guys bring the metal and concentrate on power and aggression. 

Stylistically they lay somewhere to the right of Pantera and the left of Anthrax, with a little Suicidal Tendencies thrown in. While they incorporate some elements of nu-metal into their sound, for the most part these guys kick out an old school vibe. 

"Torn" mixes thrashy vocals and guitars with some flavors of nu-metal, and aggressive drums. The title track, "Planet Dead," changes things up a bit with a little bit of a Suicidal Tendencies feel in the vocals. A nice piece of hard-core meet metal. 

"Creeper" has a proggy feel, changing things up between rip-happy guitars to mellower musical interludes during the verses. It takes a couple of listens to really get into the variances but it really grows on you after a few spins. 

"Down," is again a new direction, sort of like modern rock on massive amounts of speed meets the hard-core styling of The Step Kings. Vocally, this song also reflects the Step Kings with a battle going on between more melodic singing and full on hard-core screams. Like the next track, this really shows some dynamics in the vocal department. 

"Pain 4 Sale," is yet another track that takes you in a slightly different direction. No one could ever accuse this band of being redundant.  They are strong songwriters and musicians who bring a real variety to the table. At the same time, while they delve into different musical directions they do manage to keep it all under a definitive Jugulur sound. The sound they capture here is a really hard to describe, it's not as heavy as most of their other songs but is still a headbanger with plenty of attitude.

"War Retribution" is straight in your face metal with a driving beat, a wall of guitars and metal-core vocals until they go a totally different direction about halfway through the song for the bridge only to return to thrashy metal.   This song is a perfect ending to a killer CD. 

My only real complaint is that this CD ends way too soon. That's to be expected from an EP, but damned if it didn't leave me wanting more. Jugulur definite delivers and they have the potential to really go places in the metal scene once a label with enough resources gets behind them. 

Hats off to Jugulur for a job well done.

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