Job For A Cowboy has awoken from its slumber.
Ten years after their last production, the band continues their collaboration with Metal Blade Records to unveil their unexpected fifth album.
Jonny Davy (vocals, Serpent of Gnosis), Alan Glassman (guitar, Goratory, Serpent of Gnosis, ex-Despised Icon), Nick Schendzielos (bass, Cephalic Carnage, Havok, Nuclear Power Trio), Tony Sannicandro (guitar, Serpent of Gnosis) and Navene Koperweis (drums, Entheos) announce the release of Moon Healer in 2024.
The album gets off to an eerily gentle start with Beyond the Chemical Doorway, a composition that quickly reveals its full complexity while becoming much more massive and oppressive. Bass and guitars develop a permanent cloud of dissonance, but the most aggressive elements are still allowed to appear, before the next track Etched in Oblivion lets fury seize the musicians to play at full speed. The sound of the fretless bass coupled with the chaotic leads once again weighs down the atmosphere, which doesn’t get any more breathable with Grinding Wheels of Ophanim and its jerky riffs, exploding here and there in a totally unexpected and devastating way between two airy parts. The Sun Gave Me Ashes So I Sought Out the Moon follows with a catchy rhythmic pattern reminiscent of their devastating debut, but the band don’t hold back in injecting their Prog influences to make it very eventful, then it’s Into the Crystalline Crypts where musicians go wild again. Their technical skills are put to good use in the service of violence and heaviness, which suffocates us more and more before flaring up one last time, before giving way to A Sorrow-Filled Moon and its false abrasive quietness, which easily intensifies as the band pours all its rage into its riffs, which become more anguished and melancholy towards the final. The madness picks up again as The Agony Seeping Storm sends its rhythmic drive into overdrive, coupling precision and fury with a few more airy parts, then the final explodes again before The Forever Rot brings the album to a close with a final dose of tangled riffs, whether at a moderate or more brisk pace, letting the melodies fly between the various screams and blast parts.
Job for a Cowboy picks up exactly where the band left off, in violent roots but haunted by extreme complexity. Moon Healer is a pleasure to listen to, but it’s the live version I’m most looking forward to.
85/100