As a long-time fan of KILLWHITNEYDEAD and being one of the few fortunate souls that have seen them live, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the band is back in a big way with their first album in seven years, 'Suffer My Wrath'. These guys have always been somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, somewhat a mixture of ANIMOSITY & PANTERA with sour lyrics about betrayal, anger and above all, retribution.

KILLWHITNEYDEAD was, at the very beginning, a studio-only project from the Kevin Smith of Heavy Metal and the ex-boyfriend from Hell, Matt Rudzinski. After the band began to gain large amounts of popularity during the mid 2000's (the Gilded Age of Deathcore), they did a string of tours with the band THE DEMONSTRATION working double-time for Matt's lovechild.

There are several things I love about KILLWHITNEYDEAD. Firstly, the insanely sick guitar solos that never lose character on each and every song. Secondly, the hardcore aspect that is utilized for groove as well as to help get their fans to sing along. Thirdly, Rudzinski's demonic and blood-thirsty vocals. And lastly, the excessive use of movie samples. All of these things, by the way, carried over onto 'Suffer My Wrath' as if they haven't missed a beat.

I love playing the Guess-The-Movie-Clip game with KILLWHITNEYDEAD's albums. If you could know only one thing about the band KILLWHITNEYDEAD, it is their love of movies. Back in the olden days (this being 2004), KILLWHITNEYDEAD used as many samples as your average mash up DJ. They even had remixes of their early albums with all of the movie samples replaced with new ones. But on 'Suffer My Wrath' I have spotted clips from the movies The Seventh Seal, 30 Days of Night, The Girl Next Door, Conan the Barbarian, Law Abiding Citizen & probably the greatest clip on the whole record is the ending monologue from God Bless America.

Although the band has heavily scaled back on the movie sound bites, they are distributed in a very even and not over-whelming balance. Transition pauses are not given to the clips mid-song like on their older albums. Perhaps this is what the band deems as one of the polarizing catalysts amongst their older fan base (hey, that's me!).

But, just being honest here, the real controversy behind the band KILLWHITNEYDEAD were the lyrics on their early classics like 'Never Good Enough For You' & 'So Pretty, So Plastic'. Matt did a frighteningly good job putting a lot of the violent anger into the lyric writing but sometimes, the hostility was clearly directed at women, such as their lyrics of the song "Revenge (My Part Time Lover)":

"Selfish piece of shit/Self-serving bitch/Subtle kiss of steel through your skin/How quickly blood runs from you/Like it was truly afraid".

I think as the band matured and started seeing the effects of their catchy hooks expressing the need to kill and torture people had on a live crowd, they had to draw the line when they witnessed people being assaulted after their shows. The band, primarily their vocalist and founder Matt Rudzinski, has always been very defensive of their music claiming that violence in real life and violence in art are not the same thing and he is making an accurate argument by stating there is no direct link between his music and real life violence.

Perhaps, possibly intentionally wanting to be tongue-in-cheek about this controversial aspect about their past songs, the song "Tip of My Tongue" continues this tradition writing lyrics dealing with juvenile sexual frustrations. The lyrics "Here we are, me and you/another midnight rendezvous...I want it/You've got it/Give it to me now".

This just goes to prove that they don't really take the violent aggression that has dogged the band hasn't gotten to them at all.

I wouldn't say that they didn't learn anything because Matt and Kyle are both married men and I'm sure they find violence towards women equally as detestable as I do. No matter how violent KILLWHITNEYDEAD's lyrics may have been in the past, at the very least it gave their younger fans with that same amount of aggression a safe place to explore those dark, brooding feelings. I don't think a single person has ever gotten hurt as a result of hearing any of their albums and I don't think these songs ever inspired anyone to hurt or murder any women!

I think the biggest change made to KILLWHITNEYDEAD's sound is the amplification of the Metal elements in the songwriting. Although I have been on-the-fence on the cheesy Power Metal vocals from guest musician Shawn Pelata from LINE OF FIRE. I do admire the guy's Rob Halford-level screams and 'Suffer My Wrath' probably has done the best job out of KILLWHITNEYDEAD's entire discography at utilizing his talents for Metal. The guitar work from Kyle Odell is fantastic, too. Even the riffs and solos on my least favorite song, "Tip Of My Tongue" was made palatable to me by the giant chunk of that song comprised of his sweet guitar solos. And if you couldn't already tell from their non sequitur album cover, a lot of the songwriting has a lot of "fantasy violence", as American television censors like to call it. Songs about sword-related murders and battle-lusting rage are nothing new to the realm of Metal lyrics and are completely devoid of any controversy.

So does 'Suffer My Wrath' make me suffer? Absolutely not! Not unless you're talking about the molten hot metal sounds being poured into my ear cavities. This album was a treat for every KILLWHITNEYDEAD fan, even though the band has reverted back to a studio-only project. This album was just as enjoyable and memorable as the first two albums but with a lot of the Hardcore elements stripped away. I truly appreciate the music Matt Rudzinski has made that has impacted my life in a positive way but I guess we'll have to wait and see if we have to wait another seven years for a new album!