Victims of Leisure

  SISTERED "Graverobbers" [Demo]

<a href="http://sistered.bandcamp.com/track/graverobbers" data-mce-href="http://sistered.bandcamp.com/track/graverobbers">Graverobbers by Sistered</a>

SISTERED's New Sky (2011) was a constellation of millennial Heavy Metal phrases; yet another Pittsburgh band chasing—and this time, capturing—a bygone zeitgeist. Except in this case, it wasn't the band but the recording that arrived late: New Sky was composed of six-year-old songs exhumed to serve as the initial program for the band's 2010 reboot. Like all lost classics, the resulting document was of—and out of—its time. Situated outside the cycle of hype and relevance, New Sky was free to be merely great.

In the meantime, SISTERED modernized their sound by reaching further into the past. Expurgated from the new material is any morsel of the nougat-ey sludge-metal riffing that sweetened their debut. With "Graverobbers," they've forced slick MEGADETH-worship through the sharp mesh of hardcore to create an equally repellent and enticing admixture, purified of anything remotely hip. If Reign in Blood represents this combination of allure and repulsion elevated to some demented Art, SISTERED are approaching that mark. While peers like MIDNIGHT thrash with tongue-in-cheek, this is music possessed of real darkness.