Soilent Green

Even for a death-metal band, Soilent Green was unusually hateful. In its songs, the band took gruesome pride in subjecting lustful whores to violent acts, like a Victorian slasher. The malevolence sounded genuine, too: This was a documentary-gritty Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in a genre stocked with shoddy, ludicrous Friday the 13th sequels. In 2001, Soilent Green survived a van wreck that left two members with broken bones. A few months later, another accident occurred, this one much more serious. Louis Singer Benjamin Falgoust II required several surgeries and subsequent therapy, during which he had to relearn how to walk. On Confrontation, its comeback album, Soilent Green has more on its mind than misogynistic mayhem. Misanthropic and obsessed with mortality, these songs read more like pensive suicide notes than stalker threats. Musically, too, the group outdoes its previous efforts. Drummer Tommy Buckley’s fills flare every time Falgoust takes a breath, but the compositions don’t feel busy, because the intricate parts form swamp-sludge grooves. The instrument-isolation segments, which telegraph a speed surge, unleash far more than they foreshadow. Like the lightning strikes in War of the Worlds, they hint at a thunderstorm but deliver an apocalypse.