The Dream Is Dead

Milwaukee-based metal quartet 9mm Solution rages through ten songs in 30 minutes on its second album, The Dream Is Dead, never spending more than three-and-a-half minutes on a track. This concision works well, as, on each number, the band gets in and makes its point before moving on. The points are similar, of course, with the musicians generally maintaining a martial lockstep and thundering riffs, over which Hobbes Caltous howls clichéd lyrics full of hate, anger, and insecurity. This is a group that likes to dress up in suits, Men in Black style, and point guns at the camera in photographs, just in case the band name didn't make their position clear. At times, those guns are pointed back at the shooters, too, with "Suicide Letter" being only one song in which the disgust is inner directed. Sometimes, sung vocals alternate with the howling in a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde fashion, as if the vocalists represented different parts of a schizophrenic mind arguing with itself. If so, no resolution is reached, but at least the musicians are venting their frustration with instruments instead of weapons.