Band:	The Black Dahlia Murder
Album:	Everblack
Style:	Melodic death metal, Metalcore
Release date:	June 2013

01. In Hell Is Where She Waits For Me
02. Goat Of Departure
03. Into The Everblack
04. Raped In Hatred By Vines Of Thorn
05. Phantom Limb Masturbation
06. Control
07. Blood Mine
08. Every Rope A Noose
09. Their Beloved Absentee
10. Map Of Scars

TBDM's discog seems to have its share of missteps?Ritual is pretty boring, and despite the excellent "Christ Deformed," Deflorate is too plasticky (forget my guest review of it)?but when these guys play they play hard, and, despite all their lineup changes over the years, they seem to be getting tighter in the musicianship department.

The overly-technical guitar work on their past two albums just never really jived with what seems are the the core instincts of the band: reckless, arm-flailing brashness. Solos would seem tacked on and sound more like a gesture to the metalheads who dismiss them as just another pop, short-haired, breakdown-overusing group that they've got some technical chops. And that just didn't make for good, cohesive music. They fucked up on trying to have it both ways, if you ask me.

Now, even with the continuation of misplaced, boring, overly clean and melodic soloing, most of this album feels just right. It sounds more like a band's music than the random shotgun spraying of styles aimed at their pretty goddamn big audience of their past couple discs. The Unhallowed sound may be pretty much gone, but this is good in a different, more practiced way.

I don't know how I feel about the loss of that extra bit of crudeness and snot-sleeved-soda-guzzling-Jackass-worshipping-fun-having-teenager quality of their early stuff but, even so, Everblack is a polished shredfest (with Strnad, their vocalist, sounding especially good), and shredfests are fun.

A couple of the tracks on here are tedious and feel like they need to be sped up and have fewer melodramatic solos. Some of the drumming sounds too tinny. A number of the tracks sputter out as well, lending the album a bit of an anti-climactic feel.

That said, plain fact is most of the songs here are good, bringing on the youthful, fun-having feeling these guys have on stage?and what the fuck else could a fan of these guys want? It's part evil, part melodrama, part freebasing-sugar-cubes fun.

Highlights: "Goat of Departure," "In Hell is Where She Waits for Me," and "Raped in Hatred by Vines of Thorn"