Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals - Walk Through Exits Only (Album Review)
Monday, 22 July 2013
Written by Alec Chillingworth
Have you ever been smacked across the face with a sack full of spanners? Probably not, but that's the only way to describe 'Walk Through Exits Only' upon first listen.
With Phil Anselmo being the prolific, musically diverse wizard that he is, expectations for his solo debut have been somewhat varied. Would it be straight-up groove metal? Sludge? Black metal? He has dipped his toes in a sea of sub-genres in the past, so this album could have been 40 minutes of dirty jazz for all we knew.
Fortunately he hasn't rolled out the saxophone just yet, and Anselmo sums up the entire album on the minuscule opening track, Music Media Is My Whore. The man simply does not give a fuck. Not one. He's going to make whatever music he wants, and he's going to make it on his own terms.
Battalion Of Zero, the record's first proper track, kicks like a mule wearing steel toe-capped boots. Anselmo roars “Heads up! Hands down!”, unleashing a flurry of volatile thrash, with Warbeast drummer Jose Gonzales beating the living piss out of his poor drums.
Time signatures are switched up and thrown all over the place, earning the band a place next to the Dillinger Escape Plan in the “So when am I supposed to headbang?” stakes.
There's no letting up, no brooding ballad sections that could hark back to Cemetery Gates. It's just brutality. Anselmo's hoarse, iconic grunt is present throughout, and he throws in screams every now and again that sound like they were plucked straight from 'The Great Southern Trendkill'.
After the monstrous title track, it seems that Anselmo could do with a Locket or two. No throat should endure this amount of abuse, let alone the throat of a man who's been screaming his arse off for over two decades. There aren't any melodic, catchy choruses around these parts.
Of course, 'Walk Through Exits Only' has its flaws. The punishing nature of the album will almost certainly alienate those who exclusively listen to Pantera or Down and it's not an easy album to wrap your ears around. The seemingly disorganised nature of the songs risk scaring off the casual listener, with MarziMontazeri's hectic, ham-handed guitar solo on Usurper Bastard's Rant a prime example.
Despite this, the droning, eight minute outro slapped onto Irrelevant Walls And Computer Screens is the only true niggle with the album. The final song is only five minutes long, but someone thought it was a good idea to add seven minutes of scraping guitar and brooding noise to the end of it. Fair enough if this was a Skinny Puppy record, but it's not.
'Walk Through Exits Only' isn't an easy listen at first, in fact it's like giving birth to a monster. It's disgusting to look at but, as time passes, you learn to love the terrifying toddler. Philip H. Anselmo has created a grotesque, gargantuan slice of metal, and he really won't be bothered if you don't like it.
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