PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Melbourne, Australia’s Deez Nuts brought forth their fourth studio album, Word Is Bond, in the spring of 2015. Word Is Bond is a 14 track disc filled with monolithic, aggressive hardcore crossover thrash metal that will sear your feet to the floor and melt your face simultaneously.
The overall sonic texture on Word Is Bond is consistent, with each song being relatively similar to each other song. When those songs are filled with skull-jarring, bone-crunching riffs, homogeneity is a very good thing! The modern, crisp mix is overall vocal and guitar-forward, but well-balanced. Instrumentation is relatively simplistic, as to be expected from the genre. Musicianship is adequate and competent. Each song has a spartan amount of layers, effects, and so on to serve the song – the album is not over-produced. Song durations are “punk” short, for the most part. Ideas are well-chosen and sparingly wrapped into each song, which ends up as an aural near-equivalent to reading shorter sentences or text messages. Vocalist JJ Peters has a deeper, more convincing voice with a slightly grittier delivery. Lyrics are vitriolic, negative, and loaded with swearing: the songs effectively channel negativity and hostility. Deez Nuts’s lyrical prosody is fairly rap-ish, so for listeners who enjoy the “metal rap hybrid” sound, this album will be a fun listen.
Where Word Is Bond shines most brightly is in it’s riffage. The momentum here from Matthew “Realbad” Rogers‘s guitar and Sean Kennedy‘s bass guitar lines is gargantuan: check out the body-slamming “What’s Good?” and “Wrong Things Right”. Deez Nuts thankfully does very little to stop the flow: they don’t engage in excessive ‘stopping’ or ‘speeding up’. Once they get going, they are fairly unstoppable, save the deliberate breakdowns scattered throughout. For fans who want their thrash heavy, crushingly distorted, and intense, the guitar work on this disc is hard to best. M.O.D, Anthrax, and S.O.D have all released discs this heavy, but none have released something of this heft in 2015. For fresh new neck-snapping, circle-pitting, uncontrived metal, this disc will fit the bill. Of note, also, is Alex Salinger‘s drumming. Rock solid, he does make efforts to include some fairly nonstandard ideas, such as in “Party At The Hill” and “Word Is Bond”. There are some interesting tempo shifts and syncopations, but the tunes are not built on them: like his bandmates, he plays to serve the songs.
Especially evocative towards the angrier, younger generation, Deez Nuts’s Word Is Bond will find a fertile niche with fans looking for an album undiluted with undue outside genre influence. The entire album runs just 37 minutes, so it has fantastic “smash and grab” appeal, especially for someone looking to add “just enough” thrash to a roadtrip or workout playlist. With consistent sound and massive delivery, these Aussies know their niche and they’re playing through it very well.
Track listing:
Word
Yesterday
Pour Up
What’s Good?
Behind Bars
What I Gotta Do
Chess Boxin’
Don’t Wanna Talk About It
Face This On My Own
Wrong Things Right
Understand
Party At The Hill
The Message
Word Is Bond
Band Line Up:
JJ Peters – vocals
Matthew “Realbad” Rogers – guitar
Sean Kennedy – bass guitar
Alex Salinger – drums
