Yes…it was worth the five years.

SHAI HULUD exists squarely in my musical comfort zone. Of course, it’s hard not to conceal my love for the band, hell, my profile picture on this very site makes it explicitly clear that the only thing I wanted to be seen clearly were the nine characters on that zip-up, which I still wear to this day.

Aside from a surprisingly immature opening paragraph, Barry Scatton is right. There’s much to recommend SHAI HULUD’s back catalog (most of it reissued by Revelation), and there’s a whole ton of praise that can and should be heaped upon it, and the band’s imprint on hardcore at this point seems indelible. But, cynically speaking, that’s all in the past, and message board “appreciation” threads can’t pay rent or the electric bill, so what’s new?

Misanthropy Pure, then, is SHAI HULUD’s first disc for their new label home Metal Blade, and it’s more brutal (and better produced) than previous HULUD discs but in a way that carries on the legacy of unwieldy lyrics about important topics destined (“A rising of iconoclasts”? Seriously?), at the very least to help future high schoolers score higher on their SAT verbal, but also to mesmerize the listener. That, of course, assumes the melodic moments and the heavy ones interspersed nearly perfectly between each other, overlapping for the band’s nearly trademark otherworldly, massively (metalc)orchestral feel haven’t already done so. (And just because it’s more brutal doesn’t mean it’s less anything else, SHAI HULUD isn’t playing a zero sum game.)

But, then again, leave it to the band that takes equal parts METALLICA, EARTH CRISIS, DESCENDENTS and Star Trek to show the thug metal jocks how to do it. They’ll be cribbing off of this disc for years (much the same way they’d been ripping off That Within Blood Ill-Tempered and Hearts Once Nourished With Hope and Compassion), and you only have to listen to Misanthropy Pure to figure out why. “Venomspreader” should be handing out lessons: “This, you unimaginative opportunists, is how you write a sub 2 minute rager.” Title track “Misanthropy Pure” might be Matt Fox’s best lyrical moment, with the line “insight through outrage” nearly crushing the listener under its magnificent weight. “To Bear the Brunt of Many Blades,” for any other band, would be a great closer, but this is SHAI HULUD, so it’s just track seven, so “there’s always room for one more blade, there’s always strength for one last breath” sounds that much more anthemic without being saccharine.

And yes, “Set Your Body Ablaze” still kills it at double time, packing an extra heavy punch, and you can bet that the Metal Blade set aren’t going to see the melodic “this man must truly be God” moment coming. It’ll be great. Oh, the breakdowns? Completely unlike what you’ll hear from the rest of the pack, drum heavy and sick.

“This is that which did not kill me,” the vocalist Matt Mazzali screams, and you get the feeling it’ll take more than a colossal sand worm to stop this band, and that’s what was missing from That Within Blood Ill-Tempered. SHAI HULUD is now unstoppable, in addition to being those same guys that hurriedly put on DESCENDENTS and SUICIDAL TENDENCIES stickers on their guitars in anticipation of their first real music video. Misanthropy Pure makes it clear that, though there might be more polish, the disc is every centimeter up to the band’s high standard.

Welcome back, SHAI HULUD, we missed you.

Metal Blade

www.metalblade.com