Job For A Cowboy - Genesis (Metal Blade)

I can’t get a handle on the overnight celebrity of this band. This is formulaic brand of death metal is chock full of boring clichés like mid-paced twin guitar chug and squeal, blast beats and enough vomitous refrains to make Cookie Monster green with envy. All these things do little more than ensure them a seat among the rank and file of their second and third tier contemporaries. Be that as it may, apparently you can break through without breaking new ground. Perhaps their extreme youth, accessibility, and penchant for unrelenting brutal noise attacks are what serve the success of JFAC’s second effort, Genesis. Like any new deathcore act (read: death metal/metalcore hybrid) Job For A Cowboy pay tribute to the gods through worship at the altar of At the Gates – and like the bazillion other bands who do the same, they forge homogenized, uninspired crap. It’s unfortunate that these bands, like As I Lay Dying, The Black Dahlia Murder, and JFAC all are seemingly championed in their total mediocrity, while outstanding acts of all genres go largely unheralded. If this is indeed the future of death metal, and extreme metal in general, let’s hope it meets a swift destiny in the used bins at your local record store.


- C. Kolakowski