The New Nightmare

Although the band's name and their album titles tend to suggest that Inhuman is part of the constipated-Muppet school of death metal, this New York quartet, in fact, pledges allegiance to the more metallic side of '80s hardcore: Samhain, Cro-Mags, and Agnostic Front, among others, will come to mind upon hearing Inhuman's fourth album. Singer Michael Scondotto has the hardcore bark down cold, and the three-piece band is amazingly tight, negotiating whiplash key changes and dynamic shifts at impossibly fast tempos without breaking a sweat. The ten originals that make up the bulk of this album are uniformly fine, with the screeching "Brooklyn Bastards" a particular highlight. But the album's closer, an unlisted cover of the Damned's "New Rose" (arguably the first true punk single), performed in a blistering '80s hardcore style, is simply monumental, both a ferocious performance of a classic song and a salute to a band that has never entirely gotten the credit they're due.