First Listen: Job for a Cowboy's Ruination

Glendale-based deathcore act Job for a Cowboy dropped the new record Ruination Tuesday in the midst of their run on the Mayhem Festival tour that comes through their hometown a week from today.

Though the New York Times praised them in the same paragraph as arty French outfit Gojira, who they toured with ("an Arizona band with a guttural, brute-force sound descended (indirectly) from hard-core punk," the Times said of them) there's no indication JFAC is going prog rock on Ruination, an album that's surprisingly short on riffs. They band lost original guitarist Ravi Bhadriraju, who went back to medical school, and the new guy, a Canuk named Alan Glassman, does an admirable job, but might not have quite found his footing in the group yet.

Though I quickly get bored with the never-ending task of making brick-sized distinctions between various sub-genres in the giant wall of metal, the black-metal shriek an Alternative Press also compliments is obvious right off the bat, and saves the growling from overexposure. Drummer Jon "Charn" Rice continues to be the band's linchpin, directing the band through whiplash tempo changes in "March To Global Enslavement" and pounding through the places other bands would put a guitar solo in "Psychological Immortality" and "Summon The Hounds."

If you're headed out to Mayhem next Friday, be sure to get there earily enough to see JFAC.