Last year The Acacia Strain declared that their third album The Dead Walk, was ‘The heaviest album of the year. Period’. In 2007, Connecticut’s Emmure claim to have the most ‘Brutal CD of 2007′. The thing is depending on your definition of heavy or brutal, both are right.

I had all sorts of put-downs ready to go when I got this in the mail; manure, demure etc, but when I hit ‘play’, I was assaulted with arguably the heaviest introductory deathcore march (“A Ticket For the Paralyzer”) I’ve heard since The Classic Struggle’s “Death March”. Folks, though most of you will simply decry this a hardcore kids spazzing out after listening to Dying Fetus, I have to say Goodbye To The Gallows is in fact one of the heaviest albums I’ve heard, (at least within the confines of genres and such) possibly even more so than even obvious comparison, The Dead Walk.

Though partly due to the absolutely massive production from Zeuss (Terror, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, etc), the fact remains the generally mid-paced material found on Goodbye To The Gallows is free from chaotic deathcore discordance and simply strives to lumber and lope with mid paced tenacity and heft for the entire pummeling duration. When not delivery truly speaker shattering girth (which is rare), the band manages to concoct an almost Misery Signals-ish sense of shimmering grace (i.e. “Sleeping Princess In Devil’s Castle”) to break up the sheer oppression the bulk of the tracks offers. The vocals of Frank Palmeri match the intensity of the music with ample deep growls and screams, and despite the odd clean caterwaul, (no where near as frequent of commercial as label mates Beneath The Sky).

Naming tracks is pretty useless as except for a few ill advised interludes (“Travis Bickle”, the end of the immense “When Everything Goes Wrong…”), the sheer palpable density of each track makes the likes of All Shall Perish and As Blood Runs Black (though not as melodic or varied) look like chamber music.

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