"Adam and Steve", an album with the tongue-in-cheek title marks the fifth album for KRUGER. KRUGER is a Swiss outfit of noise rock and alternative metal musicians who tend to get into 4-cylinder, high-octane hardcore music with an experimental twist to each song. 'Adam and Steve', a title that comes from a homophobic bumper sticker I saw somewhere in the Southern United States, has music that is grizzled but have lyrics and vocals that can be, at times, filled with a child-like playfulness.

I've read how this band is compared to the likes of ENTOMBED, CONVERGE and even TOOL. I would say that this couldn't be any further from the truth of what KRUGER sounds like. If you could imagine what a combination of "Leviathan"-era MASTODON with BOTCH or GOJIRA mixed in with SYSTEM OF A DOWN would sound like in your head, I don't think you would be too far outside of the patented KRUGER sound. These guys reminded me a lot of another Swiss post-hardcore band I reviewed earlier this summer called HEROD. Perhaps they're buddies? Are we going to start to see a Swiss bromance formed by my reviews in the future? One can only hope.

The greatest part of 'Adam & Steve' is the bass lines. On tracks like "Charger" and "Discotheque", you can really hear how Blaise from KRUGER drives the powerful groove of every song. The drums are equally as relentless and they remind me of some great hardcore and post-hardcore bands like CONVERGE, AT THE DRIVE-IN, or EVERYTIME I DIE.

The vocals from Renaud are distressing just to say the least. I do not expect him to stick with this style of vocalization in the future because you can hear him blowing his voice out on almost every track. You can explicitly hear his voice begin tear his own voice apart in a most unsettling way. I am not sure how cool I should think this is because he sounds a lot like Serj Tankian (of S.O.A.D.) although more melancholy and perverse when Blaise doesn't scream on the album.

Although I am only giving this a six out of ten, it is a strong and durable six. Barely a seven though because I don't think anyone would be too impressed by KRUGER. Well, maybe Robert Englund.