Lunatic

While Pitbulls in the Nursery have a thoroughly American name, they hail from the gritty suburbs of Paris, France. Lunatic is their debut album — they were signed on the strength of a three-track demo. There's good reason. Pitbulls in the Nursery (despite their rather stupid name) have a solid drum-heavy attack. It's tribal, ferocious, and full of twists and turns and knotty, freaked-out guitars. The nitro track, "Lente Agonie," is a couple of minutes of creepy, strange, dislocating, and tense sound effects — wind, an odd keyboard sound, birds, jungle animals — all shattered by the entrance of fear-instilling kettle drums (courtesy of Jerome Farion) and atmospheric loops. It is followed by the crunch, thud, and hammer of a drum kit and riffing guitars cracking the mix wide open. It's all great until vocalist Panda (Julien Foucault) begins his lower-than-dirt "singing." It is de rigueur these days to have a frontman who cannot do anything but growl. But truly, given the fresh, wildly inventive music the Pitbulls play, they might have invested more properly in a singer. Elements of Meshuggah and Death are in their sound, but it's far more compelling than mere influence worship. Dynamics, textures, ambiences, and that guitar sound place them head and shoulders over the morass of genericists. Check how "Strong," one of the most aggressive all-out thrashers on the set, gives way to the ethereal "Antagony." "Calibrated" is so far out there it's almost impossible to classify — except for those vocals, that is — as the gnarly quickstep and fast stops and starts create multiple parts within the same tune. Guitarists Simon Thevenet (Saim) and Mathieu Commun (Mat) work well together, shaping and sculpting intricate lines that carry rather than overwhelm any given composition. There are some idiotic things here as well, such as the track called "Monkey's Masturbation," which is pretty much your standard bone-crunch metal. Lunatic is a surprise album from a band that arrives on the scene almost fully formed.