Cancer Bats – Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones

Canadian hardcore group Cancer Bats plays a style of punk-tinged hardcore I’ve learned to appreciate in recent years.  The group is sloppy without compromising technical ambition, aggressive without letting their metal aspects take over, and vocalist Liam Cormier commands a ragged set of vocal chords that cut with all the fury of a buzz saw (think Worn In Red).  Their third album, Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, picks up where 2008’s Hail Destroyer left off, furthering the group’s reputation for tightly bound and well produced punk-metal.

The album shreds open with “Sleep This Way,” serving as a wake up call to anyone who thought they could take it easy early on.  Heavy riffs ensure a blunt power permeates any prior calm, the band taking their time for maximum impact.  But these aren’t sludgy or chugging moments, having more in common with hard rock than anything else.  “Trust No One” follows, infusing southern embellishment with their guitar, aided by a good dose of speed and metal aligning distortion.  While such tracks initially come across pessimistic and grim with repetitive downers like “Lost, lost, lost, I lost my faith.  Lost, lost, I lost my faith in the world,” the band throws in a little dark humour to lighten the mood in their responses: “I’m not as negative as all this sounds, I just feel that humanity has left me down.”

While Cancer Bats aren’t one to indulge in terms of solos, there is still plenty of erratic spontaneity for punks and metal heads alike.  Just take the crashing into “Dead Wrong,” or accentuated riff structure on “Black Metal Bicycle.”  Coupled with moments of borderline anthemic gang vocals in “We Are The Undead,” the punchy solos of “Darkness Lives,” the ragged speed, steady tempo, and vocal style of “Scared To Death,” and the group more than justifies their 2009 “Best New Group” Juno nomination.

All in all, there’s a wide appeal for the Cancer Bats across various hardcore, punk, and metal circles, and Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones puts it altogether with an accumulated know-how compounding and leading to this very reassuring point.  There aren’t a lot of bands that can pull off the hard and heavy sound without pigeonholing themselves in one of the above genres, but Cancer Bats seems to have nailed it.  The album’s generous forty-five minute run-time makes for a fairly repetition heavy listen, but in the case of Cancer Bats, I’d much rather feel exhausted and beaten than fresh-faced and anxious.