"Fucktropolis". What an awesome name for an album. And what an awesome album it is. ALL ELSE FAILS, a four-piece from Alberta, Canada, recently put forth their heaviest release yet. With only 6 tracks, one of them being hidden, this album still manages to set itself apart in the highly competitive Metal industry, and showcase the supreme talent this quartet has to offer. The music is catchy, diverse and original, and the clean and dark vocals by Barrett Klesko and Seedy Mitchell add some variety to the brutal mix. If "Fucktropolis" was a cake, it would have a lot of layers.

The band's tendency to be different is made apparent as soon as the opening track takes off. "AntiMartyr"'s commencement is Wagneresque, and having just done a University course on 19^th century music, I couldn't help but see a similarity to his "Ride Of The Valkyries". A shrill symphony of strings emerges, an eerie accompaniment to a very complicated mathematical musing about shrinking the world's population down to a single village of 100 people, and what the resultant population ratios would be. Pretty interesting stuff. Before 20 seconds has passed, however, the drums come in, and soon joined by guitar. As the narration ends the instruments take over, in an eruption of heaviness. Growls override the verses whilst clean vocals make themselves at home in the chorus and the spoken voice makes recurring appearances throughout the song.

The second track, "Better Left Undead", adheres more to conventional Metal in terms of its opening style. A funky guitar riff instantly grabs the listener's attention, and won't let it go until the song ends. The singing is pretty grungy at times, and again a spoken voice can be heard in the background, proving that this group refuse to be anything but an ordinary Metal band. The song ends with an array of studio effect sounds; a diverse feature that I'm glad was roused from the dead.

"La Demencia Violenta" is quite catchy; don't let its posh name deceive you. And "Obedience At The Alter Of Sacrifice" takes off with a 4/4 drum beat which gets your foot tapping, and distortion guitar to get your head banging. "Most Unwanted Reprieve" is very welcome indeed. Fast-paced, and coupled with vicious vocals and contrasting soft piano, this song is as unique as the band. The aforementioned hidden track, "The Deep Roads (Hidden Track)" is somewhat bizarre but also pretty cool. It consists mostly of odd sounds and 'whoas', a convention more relatable to softer genres, like Stadium Rock.

The entire album is so unconventional that it's hard to pinpoint exactly what genre ALL ELSE FAILS is, but whatever they classify themselves as, I like it.