The Texas Kings of heavy and ignorant hardcore are back and keeping the fire alive in this band with this banger of an ablum. All of their signature sounds are from crunchy riffs, dissonant pitched guitar harmonics, deep bass playing, tight and booming drums, and bold, gritty vocals. The band comes out swinging hard with their opening track, “Supreme Ruler," and gives you everything you want in a Kubla Khan song in less than a minute. Booming and hard-sounding breakdowns and big ass vocal singalongs. The majority of the album has this recipe of being big and bold, like with "Darwinism," “low tech," and the finisher “antpile 2." You know you have mastered your craft when the only lyric to your song is the number 2 and can make anyone go apeshit. The Solid songs on here deliver everything you want from this band in tight, well-paced songs. This album has a mix of short songs ranging from less than a minute to an average of 3 minutes, and so you get a good pace and flow. The songs all sound great in terms of mixing and layering. Besides some guest vocals sounding a bit low, everything has a good sound to it. The guest vocals and backing vocals all do help to add some variation to the vocals because the main vocalist Matt has a great raw energy to him but not a lot of variation. Especially on “a hopeless fate," Jaimee Jasta from Hatebreed really helps bring a different energy to the band's sound that just sounds so refreshing. Speaking of variation, the song structures and style are very their style, but at times, like on “x” and "mud," their sound feels a bit repetitive and bland at times. They still have a lot of groove and bounce to their songs and now know how to use those moments to build up to some nasty breakdowns. The exhibition of power is on display here, and you can tell boys still have a lot of energy in the tank and aren’t stopping anytime soon.
Kublai Khan TX - Exhibition Of Prowess Review
Supreme Ruler
Darwinism
Low Tech
Antpile 2