Outlawed

Attila’s fourth studio album is hardly a departure from the Atlanta quintet’s self-coined “partycore” (death metal songs championing weekend debauchery) — if anything, <i>Outlawed</i> improves on their past formulas. Over relentless eardrum pummeling, singer Chris “Fronz” Fronzak screams about the kind of hedonism that would make Axl Rose blush. The title-track rips the top off the album by dropping the listener right into the middle of their metal maelstrom. Following a deadly spray of rapid-fire drumming and guitar riffs, Fronz screams sound like a desperate man trying to escape a straitjacket. By the second track, “Light Me Up,” it’s evident that Fronz’s vocal range has expanded greatly. Long gone are the nasal-toned caterwauls of his higher register — he now inflects with more control and precision, not unlike Mike Hranica of The Devil Wears Prada. The band plays off the rails throughout <i>Outlawed</i>. They even manage to make a cowbell sound brutal on “Another Round” where Sean Heenan’s explosive drumming drives the party juggernaut into the next weekend.