Band: Job For A Cowboy
Title: Ruination
Label: Metal Blade Records
Distribution: Rough Trade Benelux
Release date: 03/07/2009
Review: CD

Job For A Cowboy, hailing from Glendale, Arizona, do exist about seven years, but this isn’t but their second full length. And I’m sure it will be a contested one again. I don’t care about it; I was positively surprised by their debut full length, Genesis, released two years ago (review still available on our beloved site).
All right, the main problem may be the complete lack of originality. Think: Decapitated, Suffocation, Human Mincer, Dying Fetus, Necrophagist, even The Black Dahlia Murder, Aborted or Cattle Decapitation come to mind. The straight-forward sonic attacks, dwelling on the edge between (technical) Blast / Death Metal and Deathcore, do shamelessly lack of own, ‘proper’ elements, some riffs are rather predictable, and some songs almost sound alike. Besides, the ‘inner’ difference between this new album and the debut one is so inferior that it almost makes me weep (read again: ‘almost’!), but… so what? The average quality is all right, the members’ individual skills are more than acceptable (amongst whom some new members, experienced in bands as Despised Icon, Crown The Lost or Burn In Silence) and the sound is brutal as fukk.
Like on the debut album, also this full length contains of a doomy track, the title track, performed with supreme grimness, and one of the highlights on Ruination.
About forty minutes in the vein of Genesis, so in case you liked the debut, you know what to do. In case you didn’t, well, it’s clear too, I guess???!

78/100

Ivan Tibos.