Neurotic November claim to be “Hood Metal”, which if their latest effort, second album Fighting Words (Victory), is anything to go by appears to be fairly straight (Metalcore flavoured) djent lightly seasoned here and there with some low-rent rap sections. I genuinely struggle to see why these guys have gotten such a bad press. I’ve certainly had a lot worse presented to me as genius. While they’re never going to set the world on fire, they at least have their own sound and no-one should in good faith paint them as The Worst Band In The World whilst brokeNCYDE is still a thing…

Fighting Words is a solid improvement on the last album – 2013’s Anunnaki (Victory) – featuring a fatter, tighter sound and more lavish production (from Joey Sturgis, the man behind the deck for Asking Alexandria and The Devil Wears Prada) . The song-writing is a lot better too with some nice guitar hooks, and half-decent vocal flows that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Stuck Mojo album.

‘The Truth About You’ is a synth-heavy start to the proceedings that is certainly decent enough to get the head nodding. ‘So Hollow’ is a Slipknot-inspired thrasher which leads us into ‘Everglades’ which features guest roars from King Conquer‘s James Mislow. ‘On The Come Up’ is the standout track on the album with the afore-mentioned Stuck Mojo similarities. ‘Rockstar’ bounces along quite nicely in an adequately average djent stylee through ‘2004 – present’ (more of the same) until we arrive at the quirky ‘Wasabi Anguish Pt. II’ which I have to admit I have a soft spot for; it’s basically a mashup of After The Burial and Eminem with some Die Antwoord influences.

So whilst Fighting Words isn’t great, it’s certainly not shit either. If non-mainstream rap metal’s your bag, it’s worth a look.

6.0/10

PHILIP PAGE