I know I’ll upset a lot of thrash purists by saying this but, for me, the fourth album from Detroit’s Walls of Jericho, despite the bands early metallic hardcore, Crisis wanna be sound, actually has more in common with the current thrash revival than anything else.

Sure, they are still fronted by the female Jamey Jasta in Candace Kucsulain with her gruff candence and venomous hardcore snarls, and she is still one of the most imposing female voices in metal, but musically, WOJ appear to have further embraced far more thrash into their sound and lessened the hardcore element eliminating gang chants and open note breakdowns. Of course, this is all in the eye of the beholder and if you heard the Redemption EP or feel the Mayhem Rockstar Energy Tour was a sellout, you no doubt feel that this band has no place being mentioned in thrash.

Still, when I listen to opening riff of “II. The Prey” as well as “A Long Walk Home”, “Discovery of Jones” and “Night of a Thousand Torches”, I can’t help recall the runaway train styled canter of classic Bay Area Thrash. Even more so when armed with Ben Schigel’s (Drowning Pool, Chimaira) production as opposed to Eric Rachael’s more typically hardcore rumble. Of course, the album is still chock full of rumbling grooves and seething chugging riffs, all flocked with Kucsulain’s feral roar as heard on tracks like “The American Dream”, “I. The Hunter”, “III. Shock of the Century” and lone hardcore-ish track “Famous Last Words” making for a dynamic, acidic album and cemetning WOJ as one of America’s more underrated yet confident, consistent and hard working metal bands.

As with “Saving Me” on With Devils Amongst Us All, The American Dream features a ballad in the form of “The Slaughter Begins”, showing of Kucsulain’s moody clean pipes, but I still prefer “Saving Me” as one of WOJ’s standout moments even if “The Slaughter Begins” is a solid, somber album closer. And also, personally, I think the band’s superb take on “House of the Rising Sun” should have been included on this album rather than relagated to the Slipknot unfused Redemption EP.

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