Syracuse NY based Brand New Sin tears up the plastic on their self titled CD in the tradition of Pantera & Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society. A package of 12 blistering hard rock tunes, the disk is a relentless cacophony of guitar & double bass drum. With the exception of the southern tinged "Missin You," which sports some tasty slide guitar, it's also decidedly lacking any melody whatsoever.
While melody is extremely important in what I choose to listen to, music sales have proven there's enough of an audience out there that gets off on chunky grooves, and Brand New Sin is aggressive enough to crank out these tuned down Pantera-like angry anthems in volume. And volume is where they live—their amps must go to eleven. Vocalist Joe Altier possesses the iron pipes that have replaced the high voiced lead vocals & big hair that metal music prided itself on in the 80's & early 90's.
What's refreshing is that Brand New Sin distinguish themselves from the current radio set of Eddie Vedder clones (eg: Creed) who share their penchant for gut crunching riffs. There's also enough of a lead guitar presence on the CD to set them apart from most popular radio-ready heavy bands. In fact, they have three guitarists: Slider, Ken Dunham & Kris Wiechmann, and their leads dabble in Molly Hatchet as much as Zakk Wylde, though they don't line up the guitars in harmony. Again, they're not fixated on melody, here. But, if heavy music is your thing, Brand New Sin's solid rythym section of Chuck Kahl & Kevin Dean set the table (a solid, beer-soaked wooden one; no cloth) for a good ole party. Bring beer. And plenty of it.
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