Nightmares Made Flesh

supergroup arrive at their third release, 2004's , having both reshuffled (drummer, now guitarist making way for / man ) and exchanged ( vocalist for top producer and multi-band member ) some of its all-star team -- the result of understandable constraints of time and other-band responsibilities. Not that this is a problem, mind you, since 's raison d'etre remains essentially the same: to provide an informal venting place for these musicians' most primal, aggressions, as typified most of their early career projects, but which have generally become less integral to their more recent and, shall we say, more refined extreme pursuits. And, if anything, this latest configuration has managed to come up with an album that's all the more ferocious and overpowering in nature than its predecessor, if that's possible. Without disrespecting 's multi-instrumental talents, it's often 's remarkable skills giving new offerings like and the sudden-stopping complexity of newfound muscle; and 's ability to now focus on his guitar contributions alongside those of men and , arguably results in an even more enviable embarrassment of guitar-riff riches than achieved on prior works. Specifically, the instantly memorable and downright wicked-sounding passages distinguishing the likes of show the kind of raw compositional prowess that virtually every other band on the planet would simply kill to possess. 's ragged-throated contributions are also perfectly suited for the hateful diatribes contained here (notably, he did not produce this album), which, as suggested by the above titles, also take great pleasure in exploiting the musicians' collectively satanic lyrical interests past. Really, one could go on and on (did we mention the glory of ?), but suffice to say that 's astounding convergence of individual talents -- not to mention these talents' unusually unselfish contributions to the whole -- do the oft-unwelcome "supergroup" tag more justice than we have grown accustomed to. [Some editions of also feature two demos of first-EP favorites as bonus tracks.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia