Album Details

• Artist: Soilent Green
• Album: Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction
• Label: Metal Blade
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2008-06-30

Metal Blade have always been a hit-or-miss label, and seem to have a knack for scooping up talent with previous label locales. Soilent Green, a long-running sludge/death metal outfit out of the New Orleans area, are one such signing, having previously released material with Relapse Records. As for the hit-or-miss thing, I would call Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction an in-between, solid but unspectacular release that should satisfy fans of dirty southern metal filtered through a more extreme spectrum.

From the get-go the fellas in Soilent Green let you know they're all about three things: competent playing, overloading aggression and denial of classic song structuring, rarely using the verse-bridge-chorus-repeat technique and instead aiming for sprawling "songs" that are more or less instrumentals w/vocals. The vocals are average, somewhat different sounding in tone but the style is so over-done that I am quite tired of hearing it so often. But at least they do not distract from the meat up the album, which has to be the sudden and jolting shifts the band often takes in the middle of a track. Check out the surprising (as in I looked up from reading their bio to see if I was still listening to the same band) country opening on the excellent track "In The Same Breath" or my personal favorite, "When All Roads Lead To Rome". The track "All This Good Intention Wasted In The Wake Of Apathy" was written for their former bandmate Glen Rambo, who died during the distaster of Hurricane Katrina. 

Apparently, Rolling Stone made claim to this band being one of the 25 most influential metal bands. You'd never know it from Inevitable Collapse, because this sounds more like a band who's middle-of-the-road extremeness is too pinned down by their lack of real songwriting skills. Each of these 11 tracks offers some highlights coupled with extended periods of rather average muddy metal. By all rights this album SHOULD have a bigger impact on me because it's actually very well done for what it is, but I can't give it any better than a 3. Metal Blade is also notorious for having a roster of similar bands, who seem to get mucho praise for doing nothing more than stepping one foot outside of the box. And that foot sometimes gets caught in the bear trap known as "critical confusion". Which is what this review represents, most of all: how is it Soilent Green have gotten so popular? Perhaps indulging in some past material might reveal that mystery to me, but this album won't do it for anyone as far as I can call it. 

User Reviews and Comments