As soon as the beginning of the first song, "Temptation's Wings", hits your eardrums your head and body will start moving and you will think to yourself "This band kicks butt!"
That's the way it was with me, but I was skeptical at first. I looked at the band's members - Philip Anselmo of Pantera (vocals and guitar), and Pepper Keenan of Corrosion Of Conformity (guitar). I liked and respected their past works but I was never really motivated to buy any of their albums. This album proves that if you put the right people together from the right bands you can end up with some great groves. Rounding out the band is Jimmy Bower (drums) of Eye Hate God, Kirk Windstein (guitar) and Todd Strange (bass) both from Crowbar.
The best way to describe the album is like this: It's a teenager in a car speeding down the road, slowing up to let a cop car pass, and then speeding down the road again. The first six songs are heavy hitters with some killer riffs which make you feel the honesty and intensity and alone make the album worth buying.
"Eyes Of The South" is a bit slower than the other songs, and starts off with a New Orleans sound. Keenan describes this as "Jim, stoned, dropping that kick & snare behind the beat pushing along lazy & slippery guitar riffs". That quote sums up this song nicely. It starts off simple with a high hat, bass and a guitar that adds some simple blues riffs. The song builds and gets heavier, and breaks only for a brief a cappella bit, and then rocks on.
One of the reasons these people came together was that they were all into the same music, such as Black Sabbath and its derivatives. "Jail", one of their slowest songs, is a perfect example of this influence, sounding similar to Black Sabbath's "Planet Cavern".
The Jimmy Page/Led Zep guitar sound is all over this album. "Pray For The Locust" is an instrumental, with just acoustic guitar and some keyboards (done by Big Ross). The title comes from the fact that they had a locust swarm problem while recording the album, possibly brought on by the 3 feet of rain that flooded the studio.
All in all this album is worth its purchase price. There's no long solos, just super grooving songs. I think this album will surprise a lot of rockers like it did to me - whether you like the fast distorted crazy riffs, slow crazy riffs or even some New Orleans blues.
