"All aboard! Welcome, passengers, to the Meat Train. Please make sure to keep your boarding passes ready, and do keep your limbs inside the train at all times, lest you lose them before we have a chance to remove them ourselves..."

Okay, now that I've gotten THAT out of my system, it's time for another review. MEAT TRAIN have arrived with an eleven-track full length guaranteed to delight fans of acts such as SIX FEET UNDER, early FEAR FACTORY, GODFLESH, and MEATHOOK SEED. With a nice industrial edge, MEAT TRAIN manage to give a nice facelift to the groovier style of death metal with a monster of an album, "Random Acts Of Carnage".

Track one, the record's title piece, gives the listener an instantaneous taste of what's to come, providing plenty of rhythm and time changes, a deep bass that refuses to relent, and coarse vocals which are nearly stripped bare of effects or reverb of any kind. It takes talent to pull off such a feat so flawlessly, and that talent is immediately apparent from minute one. The sound is really tight, just clean enough without exuding an air of over-perfection, and definitely worthy of a few well timed bangs of the ol' noggin.

The second song, "Handle With Care", is a floor crusher of a metal anthem, complete with eerie samples of a news broadcast which televises the beginnings of a coming zombie apocalypse. This track just screams! Nice guttural vocals spit forth from a decaying throat over tribal, primitive drums and bass, and all the while, the guitars chop in perfect tempo as if they were the hands of Bruce Lee himself. My only gripe about this song is that it wasn't longer, and that's saying a lot right there!

Track four shows another, more comical, side of the band MEAT TRAIN. Aptly titled "Redneck Zombies", this tune gives us a little glimpse into the hidden world of twisted humor that hides beneath the sweltering, brutal, sludgy death metal we find on the rest of the record. Among the many catchy aspects of this song, there is the use of a banjo melody that plays right into it very pleasantly. If I'd never had the privilege of hearing the song "Myr" by TAAKE, this would unquestionably be my favorite metal song made complete by the plucking of the banjo strings. In any case, it's a song that won't leave listeners who enjoy the rest of the album's contents disappointed in the least.

The stand-out track for this reviewer was "Orchards Of Death", which made me want to jump out of my seat and start moshing as soon as the first verse kicked in. Yet sitting and listening to it in its entirety was absolutely just as fulfilling. This song is a low-end destroyer, and crunchier than some of the best cold cereal out there! The vocals are wicked, raw, and primal from start to finish, and the music has that "so cold, I'm on fire" feel to it that can haunt a person like a vengeful spirit. I sincerely believe that when anyone else out there who appreciates good metal for what it is hears this song for the first time, they will be in full agreement with me when I say that it's a classic upon its very own birth.

As far as crunchy, slower, more methodical death metal goes, MEAT TRAIN "Random Acts Of Carnage" can easily be ranked up there with the rest of the best. It's altogether fun, scary, intuitive, hammering, and re-listenable as all Hell! I really do hope that this awesome band from the UK doesn't go anywhere anytime soon, because they know what they're doing, and they know how to do it right. So ends yet another review of another fantastic album that raised my brows and kicked my heart back into high gear...

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our final destination for this evening; Hades! If you are here by mistake, or you have missed your stop along the way, we're sorry to inform you that there is no turning back. All return trips on this line have been cancelled. This is your final stop. Please deboard promptly, and do not worry about your passes; they are not needed where you are headed..."