Genre gene-splicing in heavy metal, as in all forms of music, offers the potential for glorious highs and abysmal lows. When it works, the results can be electrifying, particularly when the differing strands woven together by the music would hit a whole bunch of a listener’s sweet spots individually. Pulling them all together in a way that doesn’t feel jarring but instead seems intuitive and natural compounds the pleasure in ways that just focusing on one style would not (and honestly, sometimes that pleasure derives from a feeling of pleasant surprise that the feat has been pulled off so well).

On the other hand, we are all familiar with the pitfalls of genre-splicing that has gone awry, when bands have strained to do something — anything — different, as a way of standing out from the ever-expanding pack, and the result is a Frankenstein’s monster of stitched-together parts, a forcing together of ingredients that sounds, well, forced-together.

With those observations as a prelude, it will come as no surprise that the subject of today’s premiere — Boston-based Lord Almighty — are a band who pull from different genre wellsprings, and achieve a union among them that in my humble opinion is hugely successful. Continue reading »