Steve Austin's new Supernova label is off to a great start releasing the newest Today is the Day in addition to several other noisy and horrifyingly heavy discs. The Bad Road - album number three for these Bostonians - is yet another solid disc from the label, exhibiting another young group bent on destruction. More punishing and less schizophrenic than label mates Christine, Defcon 4 have a fairly unique take on crusty, noisy, sludge.

The Bad Road features four tracks that run 22 very noisy minutes. Although brief, the disc is absolutely packed with ferocious riffing ranging from power-chord punk to detuned doomy licks to fairly straight-forward rock. Hell, in "Act III" the band speed things up to grind-like tempos which is an excellent contrast to the sloth-like lurching of the previous song ("Act II," dumbass!). It sort of comes off as something like Discharge and Kylesa getting together to play some Eyehategod songs or something. Even more diverse than the riffing is the onslought of vocalist, Dug Moore. The dude is a maniac! He has a really nice crusty yell in addition to varying levels of howls, yelps, squeels, etc. A few times on the disc the man is pushing himself so hard and comes across so forceful that you almost think he's literally going to scream his guts out. It's really quite menacing.

Everyone is trying to cross-pollinate genres these days, but the unrelenting energy and lucid madness of the tracks herein give the songs a certain flow that just works. In other words, the transitions are smooth, they make sense, and they are very fucking effective. I know it's only four tracks, but you never get the sense that Defcon 4 wastes a single riff. Everything is simple and purposeful making for some really strong tracks. All in all, The Bad Road is a pretty gnarly ride.