36 crazyfists Collisions and Castaways (CD, £9.25)

If forced to describe Alaskan metal unit 36 Crazyfists in just a single word, you might want to go with persistent. Since forming in 1994, the band has lost members to everything from the usual in-fighting to fatal car crashes, and they’ve shared the road with the likes of Alice In Chains, Atreyu, Killswitch Engage and Bullet For My Valentine. They’ve steadily made a name for themselves and faced several ups and just as many downs. But the band’s fifth record and first since 2008’s ‘The Tide and Its Takers’ became 36CF’s only studio offering to open in Billboard’s US Top 200 Chart. ‘Collisions and Castaways’ was written and recorded between October 2009 and May 2010 and is the band’s second straight effort to feature guitarist Steve Holt in the producer’s chair and Andy Sneap (Machine Head, Megadeth) handling the final mix. The album sees the band evolving into a three-piece unit following the 2008 departure of bassist Mick Whitney, who left the group to spend more time at home with his wife and children. Drummer Thomas Noonan and frontman Brock Lindow round out 36CF’s lineup. ‘Collisions and Castaways’ is a fierce, dark, crushing collection of eleven tracks that rip from the speaker like a runaway train. Arguably the band’s heaviest effort to date, it also happens to be a melodic affair and the kind of record 36 Crazyfists and Lindow have wanted to “write ten years ago. This record is exactly what I wanted our band to do at one time, Maybe a lot of people will think we’re just metalcore, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a heavy record with some big choruses and everything we’ve been about for a long time with a cool metal feel to it that I’ve been wanting”. Taking inspiration from his own life, Lindow says songs like first single ‘Reviver’, ‘Anchors’, ‘Death Renames The Light’ and ‘In the Midnights’ tackle a number of personal issues from the singer’s past that he admits “I may have swept under the rug”. Some of the songs address the series of mistakes he’d made during his 20s, which he says were something of a daze. “It’s definitely about life, my life and possibly all our lives,” Lindow says. “It’s just something I wanted to get off my chest. I really wanted to talk about what has hampered progress for me in my life. It’s about trying to be the best human being you can be and really putting some things to rest and moving forward”.