Various Artists – Saw VI: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

In many ways, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate carrier for providing the Saw VI Soundtrack than Trustkill Records.  They’re home to some of the rawest hardcore bands today – which, given the brutal, graphic nature of the Saw series, just makes sense.  However, Trustkill isn’t known for carrying a wide selection of music, so the thought of an entire eighteen tracks from the label at first felt a little daunting.  However, just a glimpse at the track listing and its easy to see that Trustkill made this more than a simple label sampler.

In fact, Trustkill went out of their way to license a handful of other great bands to make the compilation more than just 18 tracks of continuous hardcore.  Luna Coil make an appearance with “The Last Goodbye,” providing the album’s sole female vocals – a very welcome counterbalance to the raw grunts found on other tracks like those by Suicide Silence and Chimaira.  Post-industrial staples Nitzer Ebbcontribute “Never Known” – a catchy exercise in danceable warehouse rock – and horror tinged goth rockers Type O Negative provide the moody “Dead Again,” while Danko Jones offers up some good old fashioned rock.  The closing track, country rockers’ James Brothers’ “More Than A Sin,” channels the perfect semi-acoustic fade out for the album.

With variety being the name of the game, even the hardcore offerings distinguish themselves from each other.  In fact, even the weaker offerings, like It Dies Today’s “Reckless Abandonment,” put only their best foot forward and hold their own against genre heavyweights like Outbreak and Mushroomhead.

Never having watched a Saw movie I can’t really comment on how well these tracks tie in with the franchise, let alone Saw VI.  I can, however, say that I wasn’t expecting much going into this compilation, and that by the end it easily surpassed my expectations.  Heck, it even introduced me to a couple bands I immediately went out and downloaded over at emusic.  So in the end, the Saw VI Soundtrack is a very listenable survey of today’s more aggressive rock and hardcore offerings, and an album probably best used as a music discovery tool.