CD Review: CRNKSHFT – “CRNKSHFT”
No matter what you do in life, you should always strive
to put your best foot forward, which is sound advice overall, but especially
important when you only have four songs to win over a listener. And heed that
advice CRNKSHFT did with “Systematic,” the beastly opener of their eponymous
EP. Stomping drop tuned leads, soaring vocals and hard-charging grooves litter
the lead single, a formula that pays off in spades on the riff-tacular “Tears
Me Apart,” CRNKSHFT’s most accessible
offering. CRNKSHFT channels Alice In
Chains on the sludgy “Old Habits” (that guitar solo requires multiple spins)
before reminding us all how awesome nu-metal was on the closing “Breaking the
Silence” (think Soil, Drowning Pool, Full Metal Jacket, etc.). Producer Daren
Grahn’s (Metallica, Motley Crue) fingerprints can surely be felt across CRNKSHFT’s four tracks, but this EP is
much more than one man behind a mixing board. The band says that they are ‘accepted
by all those who listen to metal and rock’ and a truer sentence may have never
been spoken.
Grade: B+
Go Download: “Tears Me Apart”
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