For as long as I can remember, Horror movies have used metal bands on soundtracks. Shocker, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: the Dream Warriors, and more recently, House of a Thousand Corpses and Freddie vs. Jason are all great examples of this phenomenon. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – this album falls in line with this rule and actually has some great bands on it. Like all compilations it does have its share of bad songs also. The new tracks by Soil (“Pride”) and Static X (“Deliver Me”) were rather dull compared to songs from Hatebreed (“Below the Bottom”) and Mushroomhead (“43”).
The compilation starts with a new remix of “Immortally Insane” by the now defunct Pantera. Although a powerful song, it doesn’t quite kick start the album in the way that “Ruin” by Lamb Of God would have. It is almost like producer Ralf Sall chose the song to be on there first because of Pantera’s popularity instead of thinking about the flow of the compilation. That tactic becomes apparent when you notice that the bands seem to be tracked in accordance with their record sales and tour revenue.
The weakest point on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- the Album is “Pig” by Seether. Their brand of post-grunge, “woe is me”, heroin infused nu-metal is out of place amongst the brutal attack of bands like Morbid Angel (who contributed “Enshrined”) and Shadows Fall (“Destroyer of Senses”). The strongest song just might be the deafening and intense “5 Months” by Core-Tez. The problem with that is the listener has to wait until the end of the record to reach the song.
Basically, it is a strong metal compilation and is a great way for people new to the scene to get into some of the best metal that is coming out right now. If you’re already a fan of most of these bands, I would recommend just buying their full albums because there isn’t much in the way of great previously unreleased material offered.
