Walk Through Exits Only

Phil Anselmo doesn't make easy listening music, though it could be argued that once you find a groove here you can ride it to the very end. Pantera was an iconic group and morphed from a capable metal band into one that rewrote the rules. Anselmo's various side projects were more singleminded in their approaches, and this debut album with his new band, The Illegals, takes a hard-headed slam into the chaos. Right from the two-minute opener, "Music Media Is My Whore" (right back at you, Phil!), it's evident that the group's schematic is to turn things inside out. Vocals are brought to the front until they're nearly alone on "Battalion of Zero." The guitars from Marzi Montazeri play inventive riffs, but they're mostly there to do penance with bassist Bennett Bartley and drummer Jose Manuel Gonzalez, who weave in and out of the lanes while their singer rants with all the venom in his soul. "Betrayed," for example, is a whiplash accident about to happen.