Cost: $2.00
Was a nice surprise to find this in the bargain bin, although I was a little bummed out when I saw the barcode has been marked out. Initially I was kind of meh about it. The production is, expectedly, modern, and there is a lot of modernity and grooviness to the music (which I'd say Cronos' Venom also suffers from as well). Even during the Calm... era or the more straight up thrashiness of the Demolition Man era or even the early classic trio reunion stuff in the mid/late '90s, I'd argue they retained more of a uniqueness even though they were integrating far more contemporary influences than on their early trailblazing stuff. Also, it's not all the time, and I don't expect him to sound exactly like on Prime Evil, but there are several points where I'd be hard-pressed to identify the vocals as Demolition Man's.
All that said, after the fast intro riff to "Time to Die" the album picked up quite a bit for me, and the songwriting on the second half seems to be a bit more interesting, if not stronger in quality. In general I feel the faster songs on here are the best ones, particularly "Time to Die" and "Black N' Roll." So overall, far from terrible, yet not that great--I'm not even sure this is much of a truly positive step in continuing any of the band's legacies (I'd personally prefer to hear them doing old songs live and limiting new output to particularly inspired material). Still, enough solid material to meet my expectations, so a good find.
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