Suck Out the Poison 
Artist: He Is Legend
Label:Solid State Records
Length14 Tracks / 57:08

I admit it freely. I was a sucker for He Is Legend's first two releases, 2004's 91025 and I Am Hollywood. They were excellent, technical works of well-crafted rock/metal goodness meshed with unique lyrics which broke from the status quo in many quickly discernable ways. Fast, precise, and produced to a blinding sheen - there was and is very little to criticize about their prior records. I make no apologies.

Send a band on tour for 26 months straight and strange things are bound to happen. Perhaps your lead vocalist's vocal chords will get shot. Maybe the band will begin to favor drop tuning two full steps down. Perhaps even you'll discover that you don't even like your own sound. It's not a stretch to say that the road changes bands. In this case, I believe it's been for the better - He Is Legend toured for twenty-six straight months on I Am Hollywood. Their new record, Suck Out the Poison, is the result, in many senses, of that touring. Raw, weary, imbalancing... and yet driven by a renewed energy and passion.

Almost everything I loved musically about He Is Legend is gone on 2006's Suck Out the Poison. Along with many of their listeners, I shared in the massive, collective "Huh!?" when I first listened through the album. It was unsettling. The meticulous pro-tools production of I Am Hollywood is gone and in its place is a grimy, dirty, darkly choral resonance more akin to a live recording than manicured studio tapings. The band has, from the beginning, stood behind Suck Out the Poison unapologetically, so it seems to me that this paradigm shift in their approach to recording was very intentional. The technical excellence is still very present, it's just taken a different form. Where I Am Hollywood brought us crisp but generally quite standard rock/metal, Suck Out the Poison brings us something more akin to Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster - dirty, grungy, heavy southern rock/metal. It's a very different sounding monster, but I would argue it's also a very *good* sounding monster.

One constant which has remained is the excellence of lyrics. He Is Legend's vocalist Schuylar Croom has a gift for penning cleverly woven fairy tales out of the complexities of real, actual lives around him. References to the children's fantasy stories of Western childhood abound but the content is warped and tailored to suit the trappings and pitfalls of Western adulthood. This juxtaposition is chilling at times, and particularly delightful at others. Ultimately, it allows He Is Legend to deal with some very complex issues and stories in the safety of what comes off as fictional fantasy. It's all very intricate and well executed, and quite enjoyable to participate in.

The bottom line is this - He Is Legend, anything but content to stay put musically, has gone on an adventure with Suck Out the Poison. A very successful adventure. A quest, if you will, to create an album they love. An album which captures the bleeding-through of Western childhood fantasy and Western adulthood reality. Best of all, an album that sounds like a band that has hit their stride at top gear somewhere in the southern states amidst the rattlesnakes, swamps, and big rigs patrolling the desert.

Suck Out the Poison is mythology, magic, and all kinds of clever.

Standout Tracks: Attack of the Dungeon Witch, Suck Out the Poison, China White II, Electronic Throat, (((louds.

Jerry Bolton
10/12/2007