You won't find a more earnest love letter to the art of heavy metal guitar than the opening salvo of "The Eye Obscene" -- the threatening, doomy opening number of Saviours' fourth full-length, Death's Procession, which ultimately set the tone for an entire song-set devoted to contradicting the frantic headbanging that dominated its predecessor, 2009's suitably named Accelerated Living. Not everyone is bound to agree with this agenda, obviously, but this feels like a smart move for the Oakland-based metal-heads -- not least because neighborhood bullies like High on Fire and Black Cobra already have that particularly unrelenting and carnivorous style pretty much sewn up, of late, but also thanks to the much broader range and dimension it reveals about Saviours' talents. The ensuing tracks affectionately break down and then rebuild all forms of underground metal with great enthusiasm and plenty of imagination -- whether that means borrowing added doom ingredients from Sabbath and Trouble ("To the Grave Possessed"), or majestically galloping in the name of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal ("Earth's Possession & Death's Procession"), or finally, approaching the proto-thrash velocity of Motörhead and earliest, dirtiest Metallica, at last ("Gods End"). All the while, that originally cited guitar worship pervades Death's Procession and reasserts Saviours' qualifications as, above all else, a heavy metal band, pure and simple, free from endless subgenre analysis and distractions. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi

1		The Eye Obscene
2		To the Grave Possessed
3		Fire of Old
4		Earthen Dagger
5		Crete'n
6		Gods End
7		Earth's Possession & Death's Procession
8		Walk to the Light