I was all for the ass-whomping, slaughterhouse BBQ crunch of the opening riffs on this deceptively redneck n’ roll looking CD, but when all the hollering started up, I was ready to bail before the first chorus. I just don’t get this urban warfare junkyard dog barking thing at all, man. Hell Promise’s cleverly named throat-shredder Brian Johnson does his best Phil Anselmo/Casey Chaos impersonation over the admittedly tight, if repetitive, wall of Slayer-meets-Black Label Society noise, but Christ, that non-stop bellowing is tiresome. This CD is like being poked in the chest by some belligerent asshole for 35 minutes.  And lines like “You’ll bleed like a bitch in heat. Nobody will come to rescue you. It’s true.” don’t help matters much. I realize this is teenage rampage stuff, but it’s all gussied up with cowskulls and shit to look like the Seattle wing of the Southern stoner metal Mafia, and it just ain’t. I’m sure Slipknot fans will flip their rubber wigs for this, but as far as fans of sleaze or hard rock go, hell itself has way more promise than Hell Promise does. __________________________________________________

-Sleazegrinder