Make It a Double

With their third album, "Make It a Double," the San Diego-based band Mower continues to release the adrenaline-pumping music of their first two albums, as well as offer a jazz and funk influence that may surprise dedicated fans.

Enlisting the help of producer Eddie Wohl, who has worked with such acclaimed bands as Anthrax and Ill Nino, the band knocks out a 15 track album, which technically acts as a split album. The first nine tracks feature songs from Mower that deliver a blend of punk, hard rock and metal known from their previous records. The last six songs, however, debut the band Slower, which consists of all the same members playing jazz-inspired jams, making for an interesting twist in the band's style and range of genre.

The opening track on the album, titled "The Party," would give any new listener the impression that this band knows how to rock and that they've been doing it for years. The song opens with a bass line that is soon syncopated with snare and then joined by the double bass drum hits that turn the song into the thrashing, metal anthem that helps define the genre of "hard rock." The album then moves into "The Wolves," a song that starts with a slow verse before picking up into the punk chorus that has singers Brian Sheerin and Dominic Moscatello trading lines and tone.

Slower presents a drastic change to the album, completely stunting the adrenaline boost provided for the first half hour. With Slower, the band demonstrates that they're not constrained to upbeat rock led by double bass drumming and crunchy guitar. The lyrics, however, remain crude and offer a strange juxtaposition to the funk-backed music. On the track "Road Rage," the words, "Driving like a bitch/little piece of shit, I'll put you in a ditch," are casually sung and catch the listener off-guard, showing that the band's new genre doesn't exclude their careless attitude.

Though Mower fits well into the head-thrashing genre that they've been associated with, they don't work to produce anything to help them stand out. The band easily draws vocal and instrumental comparisons to Metallica, Slayer and Disturbed, so much to the point that a first listener may not be able to tell them apart. The band proves that they're skilled musicians, but their lack of originality doesn't help to hold the attention of the listener throughout the whole album. It's interesting to see the band switch genres for the second half of the album, though it may have had more of an impact if they didn't have to change names.