Album Review: Brighter Futures

God Bows to Math have produced an album that’s delivers hard rock that doesn’t follow any standard rock pop song formula, oh no we are talking a very hard edge 3 piece rock, full of relentless energy and raw power. Think of Queens of the Stone Age meets Pantera! The excessive hard rock base is driven along with a heavy-duty rock rhythm, none of it is predicable, it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t relent. Lead man Martin Phillips produces a very expressive open string sound with his guitar and a very powerful raspy sound with his mouth. Their sound is a controlled aggression presentation of power, that is raw and mightily impressive. Most tracks have long instrumental segments full of harmonic guitar work from Martin with Sam Cussen’s fat spanking bass, all hustling along at the frenetic beat supplied by Thomas Morrison on drums.

The rhythm of each track is never quite set, as there are great starts and stops full of sharp and tight shredded guitar and driving bass. Occasionally they have added some quirky movie audio dialogue that adds a retro rock horror character. Track 4 Oppressor vs. Oppressor showcases their ability to really mix it up, it starts all gloomy then it suddenly breaks into a jazz beat, which quickly turns into a punk rap and it all seems to work. It takes three minutes for Mortal Prophylaxis to go into hyper drive and the wait only heightens the epileptic frenzy that your drawn into. High Strings is full of cool guitar licks with the drum and bass mechanically crunching behind, and we are assaulted with more vocals that are a heady mix of hoarse screams and some surprising soaring tuneful singing. There is more energy packed into the 1 minute of Munchausen than most songs you’ll hear on contemporary radio, that’s for sure.

The album finishes with one last surprise: Oil Of Vitriol a fluid musical rock journey with more great audio grabs from old Vincent Price movies or something, all of which adds a real cool mystique plus there is the surprising addition of some sax. So if you want to hear something different that will raise your heart rate then Brighter Futures is one to fit that bill, big time.