STEMM mixes it up even more on its excellent metal cover of the Nine Inch Nails classic "Wish," where STEMM brings out the fuzz boxes, kicks up the intensity with double kick drums and adds extra palm-muted fury towards the end. They get kudos as well for its idea of industrial sounds, a creepy recording of a kitchen blender at song’s end.
Also, the band snuck in as a secret track a quality live acoustic version of "Beneath My Skin" to close out the record.
As far as STEMM’s comparison of its latest album to Pantera and its career-defining album Vulgar Display of Power is concerned, it shouldn’t be entirely dismissed out of hand given a blistering track like “Broken Face Masterpiece.” But in no way does it set a new bar for heavy metal to live up to like Vulgar did in the 1990s and beyond. You can definitely hear a lot of Phil Anselmo in Joe Cafarella’s voice throughout the record and given the heavy guitar and bass tuning, maybe Down or Reinventing The Steel-era Pantera here and there. But Pantera and Dimebag Darrell were one of a kind. Let’s leave any declarations of the next Vulgar album up to the rest of the metal world.
In all, Blood Scent is without a doubt STEMM’s best and most dynamic album to date. It has the usual "hate anthems" and some same-y songs given the band’s Drop-C tuning. But overall this group has gotten better and added more depth to their songs ("One King Down," "As Real As It Gets") than on previous records (2005’s Songs For The Incurable Heart being among them). A solid batch of metal tracks and a band constantly improving as a unit is all you can ask for. So if you have dug their material in recent years, there’s no reason you won’t enjoy their music now.
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