THE AMERICAN BLACK LUNG “Sudden Departure Of Vultures”
Sudden Departure Of Vultures is a rather sudden release. Not too long ago the boys in THE AMERICAN BLACK LUNG were making the rounds with …And They Rode Their Weapons Into War, a ten-track album full of southern fried, screamy rock/metal. A year later and with a new a label behind them (Uprising), the band is back with this nine-track disc although “Pair Of Cufflinks,” “Doc Bollywood,” and “Werewolves By Night” make a reappearance. While comparisons to EVERY TIME I DIE and VALIENT THORR are well-founded, Vultures finds the band coming into their own…just a bit. A majority of the songs are frantic with tons of driving southern riffs, but it’s when they try for something different – such as during the terrorizing ending of “They Wept As They Drowned” – where the band truly start to develop an identity of their own. With that said and despite the perfect running time (right around twenty-minutes), Vultures feels like an incredibly forced release. The fact that three songs have been released before and one of them is a cover (of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s “Born Of A Broken Man”) doesn’t help the cause either. I’m convinced THE AMERICAN BLACK LUNG are capable of writing something worthwhile, but as of release number two, they’ve yet to do so.
Uprising
