Lone Star Metal State
May 2020
Texas has always been a hotbed for great music, but it has been a while since I have been as impressed with new(ish) music out of the Lone Star State as I have been with the oldskool aggression of Lubbock natives, Judiciary.
Their 2018 debut album, Surface Noise is an absolute sensory assault from the moment the riff of album opener, Social Crusade kicks your front door down and leaves the Amazon delivery guy running bleeding back to his vehicle.
A pace that kicks serious ass persists through all nine tracks on the album, only slowing from time to time to allow some even more monstrous riffs to “stomp a mud-hole in your chest”, to quote fellow Texan, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Personal favourite, album closer, War (Time is Nigh) is as perfectly constructed a metal track as you are going to wrap your grubby little ears round. It and this entire album will leave you with a maniacal grin on your face, the like of which you have not had since you first discovered the thrash-tastic West Coast metal gods of the early 1980s.
Comparisons will be drawn with down the road, Dallas thrashers, Power Trip, and similarities there are. Mainly in how much ass is being kicked and how much you would love to see both live back to back in a club-sized tent at Download Festival.
For Fans of: Power Trip, Creeping Death
