Don't be fooled by the album artwork. It may look like that of a black/death/extreme metal band, but Columbus, Ohio's Struck By Lightning deal in a metal/punk/hardcore hybrid that exudes as much vehemence as the blackest of that murky mob. For those that spend many a sleepless nights, tossing and turning and tormented by a haunting absence of what they know not, Struck By Lightning's second album, True Predation, is the answer. An abundance of D-beat meaty beats, brick wall riffs, and throat-tearing vocals all mashed into ten mighty tracks with more balls than an amateur golf tournament, Struck By Lightning are pissed.
True Predation never lets up, to attempt to resist the level of wrath and righteousness that thrusts the album onward is futile. The down-tempo dirge that opens 'Sickening Reality' is but a smoke screen for the ferocity that is soon unleashed. 'Stalk and Prey' shifts further up the gears for a relentless sonic blast of juggernaut riffing. Where albums are likely to peak after the first few songs, the best lies in wait. 'Plague of Culture' is a savage hardcore blast of blunt riffs and vitriolic vocals; 'Mindfucker's got grooves deeper than the Kraken's basement; and closer 'Harbingers' is as an exclamation mark at the end of a potent polemic. If you survived Struck By Lightning's first strike (2009's Serpents), this second strike will surely finish you off. Brutal, relentless and unapologetic, True Predation is all killer. Recommended.
Track Listing:
- Sickening Reality
- Stalk and Prey
- Rabid Hysteria
- We Are All Just Rotting Corpse
- Funereal
- Plague Culture
- Mindfucker
- Slavocracy
- Extinction Event
- Harbingers