To press ‘play’ on ‘Smile’, the début album from New Orleans metal mob Cane Hill, is to activate an all-encompassing nostalgia for Ross Robinson production, Todd MacFarlane artwork and nihilistic slogans daubed on school textbooks.
The album is so savage a slab of unadulterated, 00s-inflected metal that the band’s hometown should seriously consider changing its name to ‘Nu Orleans’. From the same brutally downtuned guitar tones that have kept Slipknot in boiler suits for the last 18 years to Elijah Witt’s horror-movie vocals – which don’t so much owe a debt to Jonathan Davies as they have taken out a mortgage from him – there’s an air of immediate familiarity here for anyone who lived through the days of MTV2 and the music industry’s attempt to convince us that Adema were a tempting proposition.
Obvious comparisons aside, though, there’s actually a lot to enjoy on ‘Smile’. Their influences may be laid bare for all to see but that doesn’t mean Cane Hill don’t know their way around a song. Tracks like ‘The New Jesus’, with its Faith No More-referencing cheerleader vocals, and ‘Screwtape’, on which Witt unleashes the full power of his gritty singing voice, prove the band are more than just chancers with a worn-out copy of ‘Disasterpieces’ back at their parents’ house.
There’s a Deep-South dirtiness to the whole affair which is most obvious in the huge groove of closer ‘Strange Candy’, the album’s standout track and a song which owes more to bands like Down and Black Stone Cherry than to the acts mentioned above. Cane Hill are at their best when they’re channeling these urges rather than the juvenilia and porno samples of ‘Cream Pie’ (if you don’t know what that term means, for God’s sake don’t Google it at work).
‘Smile’ is far from the most original metal release you’ll hear this year, but it’s packed full of promise and guaranteed to piss off your neighbours.
ROB BARBOUR