Most people tend to mellow with age – in one’s 20s, one is still filled with passion for the things one loves and hates. By the time someone is in their 30s, raw passion has had the chance to be worked into something more refined, a quieter intensity. There is no inherent value difference in these two states of being; they are both necessary and valuable. Listening to The New Black is like experiencing that transition from raw passion to something more deliberate and designed. It’s more melodic than anything else in Strapping Young Lad’s discography, and ends by dipping into territory more familiar to fans of Devin Townsend’s solo work.

Make no mistake, this is still Strapping Young Lad. Each song is thickly layered, coming at the listener in a cohesive river of intensely energetic industrial death metal. The guitar tone is thumping with a bit of fuzz to it, echoed by thudding drums, everything tied together by a bass so insidious it becomes a menacing shadow that you fail to notice until it wraps itself around your throat. Little clear tendrils of guitar sometimes peek up out of the controlled chaos, as with an almost-decorative descending riff in Decimator and a solo in You Suck that sounds like nothing so much as an unimaginably pissed-off bumblebee. Devin Townsend’s voice reigns supreme above everything; in this aspect alone is The New Black like Alien.

Speaking of vocals, The New Black features two guest vocalists; Gwar frontman Oderus Urungus and Bif Naked. Oderus appears on Far Beyond Metal, where he sings a verse from Gwar’s Maggots. Although the music becomes a virtual quote, it still retains something of a Strapping Young Lad stain, an effect which also shows in Oderus’s delivery. His voice isn’t quite meant for Strapping Young Lad, and the verse becomes a bastard child that can’t quite live up to its blood-spraying progenitor. Bif Naked, interestingly enough, fits far better on Fucker. When I first heard about Bif’s appearance on The New Black, it caught me by surprise; I recognized her name primarily from the favorite shirt of a friend of mine who, although I love her dearly, is one of the least metal people I know. Bif Naked’s discography is closer to Ani DiFranco than Devin Townsend, but she has an impressive set of pipes which she uses to excellent effect, complimenting the slightly slower, more grooving tone of Fucker.

The songs on The New Black can be grouped into three divisions defined by their intensity and aggression; they form a fairly coherent beginning, middle and end to the album. First comes Decimator, You Suck, Antiproduct and Wrong Side; all these have the sound that generally comes to mind when thinking of Strapping Young Lad, intense and brutal enough to draw blood. The riffs are fast and staccato, blending into a melody that whips by with the force of a tornado. You Suck is also the silliest song on the album, dripping with that crazed sense of humor Devin Townsend plays up on stage. The intensity is lessened with Monument, Hope and Fucker; they’re closer in character to the self-titled album than City or Alien. Finally, Almost Again, Polyphony and The New Black could have come from one of Townsend’s solo albums; put together, the effect is very much like a bridge between Strapping Young Lad and his solo work; to continue the stages-of-life metaphor, it’s the sonic equivalent of graduating from college. It’s surprising, since it doesn’t fulfill one’s expectations, and necessitates a bit of readjustment. However, the end result is still of the same quality that can be expected of anything Devin Townsend is involved with, and does not disappoint.

Don’t go into this one expecting another Alien, or even another record like their debut, Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing. This is the product of a different perspective, and although it doesn’t try to tear your eyes from their sockets, it still grabs you by the balls.