The opening song, "Cult," blew me away from the start with a crunchy, harmonic-drenched riff. And then Lizza's vocals come in--her low, grunting vocals carry a lot of power, but, unlike plenty of grunted metal vocals, are still completely understandable. She has a good range too, showcased by the switch to melodic vocals later in the song. On later tracks such as "Raw," she even seems to channel Heart on the clean vocals (which, just so we're clear, I mean as a good thing).

As the CD progresses, the band treats us to a mixture of crunchy riffing such as the lockstep pummel at the intro to "Raw" or the groove of "BH," and clean acoustic guitars that remind me of some of the interludes on Shadows Fall discs. On the other hand, there are some songs that have sections mostly driven by the bass, such as "By the Numbers" or "Deep Cobble," which has a main riff pretty heavily influenced by the Deftones' "My Own Summer." Guitar solos, or at least harmonized interludes, abound; and lest the drummer not get a chance to be in the spotlight, "Psychos" ends with a cool tribal drum section.

While all of the songs have clear underpinnings of metal, they all seem to come at it from different angles. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the CD then is that they manage to keep the disc cohesive. There are a few tracks that are not as good, like "The Prophecy" which moves from a slow groove verse to a thrashy chorus and just doesn't seem to click with me, but even taking that into account there aren't really any tracks that are truly throwaways.