SOiL

Chicago. Maybe its something about coming from an industrial heartland but Chicago based bands seemed to have this machine like grind down to a art. There is a cool history in the city of balancing hard rock with something meaner and more linear, Shellac have honed it down brilliantly in whatever universe they live in and Soil are doing something similar in the world of metal.

Soil make an awesome dirty racket. They look like tough midgets, all hair and heavy duty clothes, they stand pretty still and grind out a skull scraping guitar racket. Built around their debut 'Scars' album, the live sound is awesome, Pantera pulverising-mean but its not just pure white noise, there are songs here, there are hints of trad rock in the powerhouse moves, touches of great American riffola in the grinding machine, sort of an updated version of the way the godlike Jesus Lizard attempted to play bar room rock and come out with something lethal, deadly and uncompromising... and its no surprise that Soil once worked with Shellac's Steve Albini, although they were not too happy with the results, but its that sort of background that give their rock the heavy duty twist like the understand just how much more grinding action you can squeeze out of those foul riffs...

Frontman Ryan McCombs looks like a troll and has one of those funny fifties tincan mics but he sings with a powerful ripped throat and hammers the songs home with a steely intent. He may stand virtually stock still but he commands the stage with virtually no concessions to showbiz schtick!

The Soil thing is basic, just hammer out the shit and in an era when most metal is still digging the rap rock groove its almost refreshing to hear old school hard rock played with such stinking venom.