Behind the Blackest Tears [F.Y.E. Exclusive]

As evidenced by the amount of touring and albums that Crowbar's Kirk Windstein and Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta have each individually racked up over the years, it would be completely understandable if both gentlemen decided to take a breather during off-time from their full-time gigs. Not a chance. 2010 saw the sophomore effort of their ongoing collaboration, Kingdom of Sorrow, titled Behind The Blackest Tears. And like their self-titled debut effort two years earlier, it sounds just like you think it would -- Jasta's hardcore drill sergeant barking doing battle head-on with Windstein's brutal/sludgy guitar riffage. It's certainly not pretty -- but that's the whole point. In an era when more and more metal bands are softening their sound or experimenting, you have to respect Kingdom of Sorrow's commitment to 100-percent pure, unadulterated metal. Forget about toe-tapping tunes here -- what you get is a non-stop flurry of grinding metal, especially on such tracks as "Enlightened to Extinction," "God's Law in the Devil's Land," and the title track. Even when the group attempts to slow things down for a tad (namely the track "From Heroes to Dust"), it's only a matter of time until the gears shift back to a metallic roar. They may not be breaking a whole lot of new metallic ground, but it's always reassuring to know exactly what you're going to get from Windstein and Jasta when their schedules coincide. ~ Greg Prato