Job for a Cowboy: Elliott Sellers (drums); Ravi Bhadriraju, Jonny Davy, Brent Riggs, Bobby Thompson.

Oddly named deathcore merchants Job For A Cowboy deliver their first official full-length for Metal Blade, GENESIS. The Arizona-bred quintet has built an impressive legion of fans, with incessant touring and creative online marketing. GENESIS features the kind of Testament-meets-Opeth thrashy goodness that will keep heavy-music fans coming back for more.

American Idol season six winner Jordin Sparks isn't the only new artist from the comfy suburban enclave of Glendale, AZ: death metal outfit Job for a Cowboy's debut album Genesis comes from the other side of the musical tracks as Sparks' neatly manicured pop. But if there was ever a TV show called "Death Metal Idol," Job for a Cowboy would be one of the bands that got cut about halfway through the season: Genesis has all the death metal moves down cold but lacks the spark of originality or personality that would make it more than a concise overview of circa 2007 deatchcore clich‚s. To be fair, singer Jonny Davy has a somewhat better than average death-growl that only occasionally falls into Cookie Monsterism, and drummer Jon Rice shows off a decent sense of dynamics that manages to differentiate the songs even when they're all blurring past at hyper-speed, but the ten songs here remain resolutely average nonetheless. [The disc was also released with a bonus track.] ~ Stewart Mason

Alternative Press (p.154) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "Vocalist Jonny Davy's sea-lion roar rumbles perfectly over 10 tracks of hammer drill drums and buzzsaw guitars..."