Sacred Reich mellows their approach a bit, but that's okay, because they pull it off well. Phil Rind's vocals have now settled comfortably into aggressive and rough singing instead of just shouting; he even drives Crimes Against Humanity more than the guitar riffs do. This fits well with their more varied and less brutal approach. Hell, they even have a semi-ballad here, in the form of Who's To Blame. They're even more reliant on social commentary as lyrical subject matter than before. They even tell their listeners to explore genres other than metal; the fun yet oft-derided 31 Flavors is a rap/funk number with sexual double entendres. As much as I like a lot of songs here, though, the album as a whole just can't quite achieve a score above a 4 for me. Individually, the songs are pretty damn good (Well, except for I Don't Know, which even seems to rip a riff from Violent Solutions from their first album; this song obviously sounds like they were out of ideas), but listening to the whole album...something about it just lacks a specific punch. For one thing, I really wish this had just a little more of the band's brutal thrash approach seen on Ignorance; I Don't Know is supposed to be really fast, but doesn't really work that way. When you're in the right mood, though, this album's best moments fucking rule.
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