The Neon Handshake did merely an okay job of capturing that onto record. They still sounded like enthusiastic but talented kids throwing riffs around with reckless abandon, but something was missing, something you'd never notice had you not see Justin Schlossberg hang from rafters and leap into the crowd via the bar and his guitarists pre-amp. In attempting to keep it's label happy, the band had neutered just a little of its killer instinct. Don't get me wrong, the album was very, very good, but those of us who shared the bands every breath at that stage were, in the most part, left feeling just a *tiny* bit disappointed.

Pessimism and history combine to dictate that this follow up, surely, will just confirm our creeping suspicions; that the hype machine had claimed yet another victim, and that we now had yet another deadweight band touring itself to a slow, ignominious death. Their moment has passed, right?

Perhaps it's an indication of the quality of this record that, no matter how hard I look for signs of a band creaking under the pressure of expectation, I find none. Where I expected to find replication, I found enterprise. Where I expected to find conservatism, I found expansionism. And where I expected to find an assault of riffs, I found subtlety, restraint and class. This is the album Hell Is For Heroes were aiming for with their first release, and this is the band that are so intense yet so melodic live.

Two of the best examples of how the band have evolved on this, their second LP, are co-incidentally two of the pre-release tasters, 'Kamichi' and 'Models for the Programme'. The former throws around incongruent guitars in a manner never mastered on "The Neon Handshake", backing them up with scatter-gun drums and deep, driving bass. Massive, massive riffs have been replaced with crushing rythymic assaults, and a scratchy soloish middle eight. The latter shows the restraint that makes any good heavy band great. This track prefers to wait for the killer punch rather than rush in all guns blazing, a tendancy only previously hinted at on 'Slow Song'. When this punch lands, however, towards the end of the song, HifH reach their ultimate goal; riffs, melodies and impact, punctuated by Justins distinctive vocal style.

Elsewhere on this record, 'They Will Call Us Savages' further shows the bands ability to hold back when necessary, whilst 'One Of Us' shows that they can still rock like crazy little motherfuckers. But the trump card comes with the final three tracks. 'Transmit/Disrupt' comes across as a combination of "Slow Song" and 'Three of Clubs', just many, many times better, leading into 'Discos and Casinos', the track that possibly best straddles the sound of the two LPs, but where the first ended with the release that was 'Retreat', 'Burning Lafayette' brings the album to a tense, urgent conclusion, reminding the listener that they may now be old hands on the nuemometalriff scene, but there is definitely life in them yet.

The sound of a band progressing, but not meandering, slowly but surely growing into their full potential. It may not be as immediate as 'The Neon Handshake', and it may lack the obvious singles, but as a whole it is, in my opinion, a superior album.

Ben Johnston