Jungle Rot - Terror Regime
I’ve been listening to this album over and over for months now, trying to figure out what is left to be said about the ever-amazing Jungle Rot. If after nearly two decades you don’t know how consistently impressive (and impressively consistent) this band is, there is just no hope for you. The only “review” that should really be needed is, “There is a new Jungle Rot album!” If there were any justice in the world, people would be lined up miles deep at the few remaining records stores to buy this CD, and fucking iTunes.com would be so overloaded that their servers burst into flame and melt down. But… back to justice-less reality. If you have absolutely no clue about JR, you likely won’t get my reference, either (and so why would you even be reading this?!?), but imagine something like an American Unleashed and you’d be on the right track, at least. And if that doesn’t sound like the coolest thing ever… Well, suicide is always an option. But, I digress. Now that mastermind Dave Matrise finally has a solid label behind him with a record-setting two albums in a row on Victory Records, and a hopefully stabilized line-up (featuring my old friend Jimmy Doomed on bass!), the sky’s the limit for these Midwest masters of Death Metal. From the very beginning Dave has known the secret of writing simple, heavy riffs and making them instantly memorable. This straightforward approach has served him very well over the years with a string of invariably nearly-flawless albums, and of course Terror Regime is no exception. I don’t fully comprehend why they would turn in a D.R.I. cover (“I Don’t Need Society”) that’s so close to the original version, but it’s about as far away from a problem as things get. D.R.I. is legendary, and any band paying tribute to them gets nothing but respect from me. It’s often very difficult to pick a standout track on a Jungle Rot record, because they all stand out. There has never been a Jungle Rot song that didn’t immediately claw its way into your brain and cause a severe case of Headbanger’s Neck! But even with the bar set this high, this album’s final song, “Pronounced Dead,” does poke up ever so slightly above the others, way up in the Exosphere, and is the perfect way to close out yet another astonishing album from this unstoppable band.
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