Yet again more turmoil precedes a Soilent Green release, this time an album that’s surrounded by post Hurricane Katrina tragedy (last album, Confrontation was released mere weeks before Katrina hit), deaths of former band members, and a label change from Relapse to Metal Blade. And that’s before the John Van Fleet artwork was revealed…

Artwork aside, the title of the album basically sums up the overarching themes of the album; Conviction, rebounding from personal struggles, becoming stronger and defeating the odds at all cost. And the music is a fitting companion to those themes, especially when rendered with Erik Rutan’s Mana studios production that has to be one of my very favorite tones and sounds of recent memory. It’s a thick, hazy buzz that sounds like the Stockholm sound of yore being sucked through a bong in the depths of the Louisiana swamps.

The music on Inevitable Collapse… is what you’ve come to expect from Soilent Green as they have sort of evolved into the Amon Amarth/BoltThrower of their genre, with very little tweaking of the formula; skin grazing, bluesy, southern metal mixing moments of white knuckle grindcore blast beats and hues of Swampy tangents and Sabbathian heft. It basically sounds like geographical cousin of Down and Crowbar (who share a member with Soilent Green) mixed with Napalm Death, and the band has it down pat.

From opener “Mental Acupuncture” through closer “A Pale Horse And The Story Of The End” the album delivers not necessarily 11 tangible songs, but a 41 minute, incessant cacophony of razor sharp riffs, sludgy grooves and tumultuous time changes, all backed by Ben Falgoust’s, hoarse, sneering rants. The many chaotic blasts sound like a swarm of 2lb bees having a mosh pit in your head, while the slower, dirgier moments are piles of sonic compost-fetid, nauseous and choking. The start of “In the Same Breath” and groove laden “Lovesick” provides this albums banjo laden ditties, now a staple of Soilent Green’s albums

I only have two minor (personal) gripes. First, while arguably the band’s best effort since Sewn Mouth Secrets, it’s still a fairly predictable Soilent Green album that simply seem content to tread the murky waters of the Gulf coast. The band seems capable of doing so much more. Second, while indeed the whole album is centered around overcoming obstacles and certainly recovery from tragedy is an occuring theme in the lyrics, I would have liked something a little more direct referencing the City of New Orleans itself and the subsequent resilience of the city and surrounding area, like Down’s last album.

Still, Inevitable  Collapse… is a toothless smirk and a rusty razor across the jugular of today’s clinical, cookie cutter ‘core based metal and a refreshing break from kids and breakdowns.

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