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By JEFF MAKI
There's a whole lot to get excited about over Cleveland's Salt the Wound. Founded in 2001, they are a brutal, high-speed death metal/grindcore band with devastating breakdowns, sick album artwork and a sound that is just brutal. The name says it all. The band first opens a deep gash, then bludgeons it with 12 tracks of ferocious hardcore metal until the pain and suffering is unbearable. And no, you're not gonna get better, only sickeningly worse. Vocalist Kevin Schaefer bellows out deathly growls that at times sound like squeals from a pig being slaughtered. The guitars are downtuned for maximum extremity and the playing is quite technical. Comparisons can be made to The Black Dahlia Murder or The Dillinger Escape Plan, as Salt the Wound has the same evil and nightmarish sound.
The strange thing about this album is that although Schaefer performs all of the vocals he is no longer in the band. The new vocalist is Matthew Tanner. (I wonder if he also uses the same pig-squealing vocal technique?) Yeah, the band apparently has been through a number of changes to settle with the current lineup of Tanner, guitarists Vince Stropki and Jake Scott, bassist Brian "Brooklyn" Martinez and drummer Rob Walters. It's a sure thing that crowds will erupt into a frenzy when “Better Than This” reaches its brutal breakdown. Someone could get hurt. Schaefer has a furious delivery that maximizes the aggression and violence in each and every track. Let's hope the new man can match these extremes. As you can probably tell, I'm not much on the pig squeals, but it sure beats the good cop/bad cop vocals that hundreds of bands are using. Other than this, my only gripe is that the album is not at all diverse. Once you've heard “Better Than This” and “The Conformist,” you've basically heard it all, save for the appropriately-titled album opener, "The Beginning," and closer, “The End.” Salt the Wound throws in some hardcore gang vocals during some of their breakdowns, which is original for this type of band. There is also a guest appearance by Abigail Williams guitarist Mike Wilson on “Gannon.”
Salt the Wound is deadly serious and frighteningly heavy. In fact, this is one of the heaviest and most manic slabs of metal I've heard recently, and I hear a lot of shit. The wound is open and it's bleeding out. All in all, mission accomplished for Salt the Wound.
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