Car Bomb took me by surprise. The band has a brand of technical metal that will be familiar to most of Teufel’s Tomb’s readers but at the same time manages to mix a few different influences into their sound to keep the product a bit fresh.

The first thing that will become apparent when listening to Centralia is the Meshuggah influence in the chugging song structure. It controls over the album and for the most part makes up Car Bomb’s sound. However, that’s not the bit that caught me by surprise. The album opens with "Pieces of You", and possesses a familiar set of riffs that harkens back to Gorguts‘ "Inverted" off their final album From Wisdom to Hate. Then throughout the album there are bits of jazzier type fusion, weird Human Remains-esque riffing here or there, Mike Patton-like vocal parts, and a Cephalic Carnage brand of completely polar juxtaposition in the arrangement of their songs. With the exception of a bit here or there (e.g. the annoying chanting of "666" in "M^6" is a bit too reminiscent of a certain nu metal band we will not mention), all the ingredients smoothly merge with each other, creating a melting pot of sound that is fast, complex, tight, but more importantly brutal to the necessary point that it needs to be.

Centralia is a promising sign of things to come from Car Bomb. The band demonstrates the right influences and more importantly demonstrates how to fuse them together appropriately. I’m looking forward to what comes from them next.

Written By: Necro-tron