Customer Reviews

Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
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This CD is excellent.. If you are a true fan of metal and are tired of the cookie cutter sing-a-likes. You should by all means buy this and spin it multiple times. These guys are on top of their game. The lead guitarist Brian Patton shreds with the blues like none other I have heard, at least since the Dimebag. The groove he lays out is nothing less than addictive.. Thats right, I said groove, it is in there, I'm talking behemoth swamp groove blues grind. I recently read in blender magazine where they stated tomas haake of meshuggah is the number one drummer in metal.. I beg to differ. He is really good dont get me wrong. but Tommy Buckley I think to be the better.. He is tight and ALL OVER this piece. His double bass Drives this badboy through stops and starts and fills commandingly. The singer Ben Falgoust complimenting perfectly, guttorally, and a bit Anselmo-ish. Given they are both from New Orleans its easy to understand.. I bought my first Soilent Green album in '98, Sewn Mouth Secrets.. I shelved it for a while, I didnt play it much. I guess I was more mainstreamish at the time, Boy was I a fool. Then i bought Confrontation and abruptly "saw the light". Now I CANT STOP listening to ALL their albums.. Everything else is crappy and hollow now. These guys, like Mesuggah, speak a whole new metal language and should NOT be overlooked or underlistened. The Real Deal, the Crown Jewel of Southern metal! Stop wasting time and money, fill the void in your metal and get this! Your welcome..

When I first heard track 4, "Antioxidant", one night on the radio (of all places), it was such a complete assault on all senses that I had to immediately order the CD. Since the moment I received it I have played the crap out of it from front to back on a daily basis. There is not a moment of weakness on this album....absolutely worth every penny...I may get another copy it's that good. Now quit reading this and go get it.

It's more of what you love if you're a fan of Soilent. I just caught them live and highly recommend seeing them on this tour. To follow up such a brilliant album as Confrontation with the quality shown on Collapse puts them atop my metal list. Especially when you consider the challenges this band has overcome in it's near 20 years of greatness. There's a vid on youtube for Antioxidant worth clicking on. They only fail at disappointment. LONG LIVE SOILENT GREEN!!!

I'm AMAZED that I'm the 2nd review on this album - only 1 other review?? Great bands like Soilent Green, Unexpect, and Anand Clique are oddly left underground - this album is quite entertaining! Highly recommended for hardcore and rock fans.

By the fifth time around, you know the deal with Soilent Green (that is to say if you, for some odd reason, aren't already well-acquainted with them.) This storied Louisiana crew has long been world-renowned for their patented concoction of sludge, doom, and stoner metal with grindcore, death metal, hardcore, math metal, groove metal, and black metal. A little bit of thrash and distinctly Southern rock are thrown in for good measure, as well. It is an epic array of genres, and about as beastly an amalgam of all things heavy as you will come by. (Think Black Sabbath, Corrosion Of Conformity, Acid Bath, The Melvins, Napalm Death, Meshuggah, Converge, Pig Destroyer, Terrorizer, Godflesh, Bongzilla, Venom, Dissection, Suffocation, Necrophagia, Morbid Angel, Carcass, Assuck, Slayer, Fear Factory, and Sepultura all in one blender.), Their sound is also a very dense, original, technical, and somewhat challenging one, and is complete with terrifically impeccable and inventive musicianship all-around. True, Soilent Green are kind of the type of band that somehow gets by even though they more-or-less make the same album again and again. At the very least, you couldn't debate the fact that the differences between one release and another are minimal.

Still, there is definitely something about each S.G. effort that makes them great, and refrains from sounding stale or predictable. For starters, any metalhead would tell you that they consistently deliver quality albums time and time again. And sometimes, you just cannot get enough of the good stuff. (There are always enough Pantera-esque mammoth grooves, highly technical playing, breakneck tempo changes, and brutal breakdowns to choke a bison.) Furthermore, the band's musicianship never fails to astound with frenetic blasting, mammoth grooves, technical bass playing, visceral vocals, and excellent riffage. Next, seeing how the songs are almost Dillinger Escape Plan-worthy in their "math-y"-ness. Each one goes through innumerable different places and unpredictable tempos (and at the drop of a hat, too!). This makes it hard for the arrangements to grow stale and/or repetitive. Finally, even after a decade and counting (dating back to 1995's debut, "Psoul"), no one has been able to duplicate their exact sound. To this day, Soilent Green remain one of extreme music's most innovative and distinct groups. "In The Same Breath," the heavily black metal-influenced third track on ""Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction," which clearly draws from the same well as Celtic Frost (especially vocally and lyrically) is one major exception to this rule, though; as is "Mental Acupuncture," which falls somewhere between Crowbar, Down, Goatwhore, Cryptopsy, and Hatebreed. (Although additional traces of Eyehategod, Nile, Bolt Thrower, and Prong can be heard, too.). Tommy Buckley drives the rhythms with impeccable, Brutal Truth-ish, jackhammer-fast blast beats, and all the while, frontman Ben Falgoust is laying down one skin-crawling black metal rasp after another. However, as is the deal with anything by Soilent Green, the real key to the song's brilliance lies in the almighty guitar riff. And this commanding set opener is filled with memorable ones. It begins with a great, repetitive, towering doom-laden lick before abruptly switching to catchy grindcore picking, followed by various other inexorable, metal-iron, head-bangable, and inventive riffage.

Later on, "Antioxidant" is another epic. It finds the band augmenting their patented distinctly doomy guitars, thunderous rhythms, and brutal grindcore blasts with punk-y and bluesy grooves, traditional death growls, and noteworthy bass work. Fat bass lines abound, but the real highlight, here, is the excellent, lengthy, technical, Steve Harris/Les Claypool-like slapped bass solo. "Lovesick" and "A Pale Horse And The Story Of The End" are similar in that they both ripe with tons more amazing riffs. These cuts are also both, more-or-less, pure doom metal, even though the former would sometimes lead you to believe otherwise. It begins on a near ballad note with hooky, Southern-fried (and almost hillbilly-sounding) acoustic strums and grungy overtones. Then it slams into moshable territory as thrash-paced buzzsaw guitar leads, and superb, mind-boggling trapkit annihilation take over. Still, "Lovesick" drops the doom hammer with the best of `em, as it is primarily centered around mean, sludgy, Sabbath riffing. And seemingly taking over where this track left off, "A Pale Horse..." offers up some of what should perhaps be considered the record's finest guitar work. It continuously pounds out piles of booming doom riffs that are brutally-heavy and downtuned yet oddly simultaneously rhythmic and groovy. They all possess a nearly anthemic feel, and make one wonder if Kirk Windstein (of Crowbar and Kingdom Of Sorrow fame) is listening to them and nodding in approval. Other highlights include the wicked high shrieks and low, brutal bellows of "Blessed In The Arms Of Servitude"; the weird, catchy, acid-soaked, Black Label Society-style wah-wah intro guitars, bludgeoning, Southern sludge-filled grooves, and blood-curdling vocal patterns of "Superstition Armed At One's Skull" ; and the bullying, High On Fire-esque groove-laden riffs, excellent drumming - including a fast drum intro, machine gun double bass'ing, booming snares and toms, and impressive, polyrhythmic fills - and catchy, Red Hot Chili Peppers-inspired funky bass lines throughout "When All Roads Lead To Rome."

Indeed, there is no doubt if Soilent Green sometimes sound quite familiar, here; but then again, they do sound as strong as ever, too. Hence, "Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction" makes for more than enough enjoyable and exhilarating listening sessions that it is just about impossible to be unsatisfying if you have a craving for the heavy stuff. Strongly recommended.

They are ahead of the pack.What there tring to do.It just plain works together.I like them!

While maybe not a classic album, Soilent Green's Inevitable Collapse is definately what a metalhead might call a 'tight record'. With intense, speedy passages, ruthless drumming, and a spitting vocal front that never lets up, Soilent Green have proven here that quality is in the details. To describe them, I might term them a mixture between a less evil version of Goatwhore and Mastodon (Remission era) on steroids, sans the melody. Although that's a bit hard to imagine.

It will take quite a few listens for this record to sink in, particularly if you are a new listener, but the devil is in the details. There are no choruses, there are breakdowns but they are often unexpected. There are twists and turns in the structure of these songs that are akin to the schizophrenic workings of a serial killers mind. While it does take time to sink in and comprehend, it takes no time at all to work. It's a one-pill stop when it comes to intensity and many people out there can't stomach it.

Track by track, the problem here is that the 'failure' to change tempos within the album, while obviously a conscious choice, forces you to want to quit listening before it's all over. While the frenzy is appealing to many, it's a dish best served in small doses and perhaps Soilent are yet to understand the dynamics of adjusting that melody and tempo ever so slightly i order to further the perceived intensity of the album, instead of losing its affect in the static of the screams and riffage.

Overall very good. Could have been a classic. But still one of the better albums in 2008.

Absolutely friggin' TIGHT and grooving... like metal should be. Thrashy as hell, tight and driving... these guys do it right. Infectious riffing, tight drumming, short and concentrated songs... it all works and works well.

I had never even HEARD of Soilent Green (I'm ashamed to say) until I picked this up, totally on a whim (hey, the cover art is cool as hell, and it mentions Eric Rutan as producer, so it's at least metal, on the back cover... so, what the heck... what a GREAT surprise that it was this good). SOOOOOO glad I found it. I really don't know who to compare them to... doesn't really matter anyway. They crush, and I hope to catch them live soon (South East coast of Florida anytime soon, guys???)

By the way, it is a really cool change to have unique and cool cover art on a metal disc for once. I'm sick of all the stupid comic-y gore splatterfest covers of death metal releases, and this cover art is REALLY good. I'm a bit too old to be hanging up bedroom posters of metal bands anymore, but this would be a great 24x36 piece...