Metal’s a curious proposition these days. Too many bands, too many subgenres to keep track of — half of it’s emo in disguise and the rest is up its own ass with pseudo-progressive noodling. I’m old, I guess is what I’m trying to say. Nonetheless, when a band like Tenderizor comes along, there’s nothing else I can really call them but a metal band. The triple-guitar (also bass, drums, vocals, noise) Albuquerque five-piece released their debut LP, Touch the Sword, in March via Sick!Sick!Sick!, and there’s some thrash, some quirk, some tongue-in-cheek stuff, and even some Top Ramen chicanery, but as its heart, it’s metal all the way.

And it’s not usually the kind of thing I’d cover here — well, maybe; the title track is kind of riffy in its verses — but they share vocalist/bassist/noisemaker Steve Hammond with fellow New Mexican weirdos Leeches of Lore, and if, like me, you dug the heavier elements that showed up on their recent Attack the Future full-length, then the Slayer-meets-Metallica thrashing nonsense of “The Gilded Knight” should be just the thing to kick your Monday afternoon in the ass. The vinyl is limited to 500 copies, and they’re selling it at their Bandcamp page, along with a download.

In the meantime, they’ve made four of the total eight tracks available for streaming, and here they are:

The second album from sun-baked New Mexican weirdos Leeches of Lore – named for what it sounds like in being called Attack the Future – first came into my hands last year on a limited-to-100 cassette via Sick!Sick!Sick! Distribution. There are apparently some of those left for anyone who’d have them, but the Albuquerque duo-turned-trio, who released their self-titled full-length on MeteorCity in 2009, have done a pressing of Attack the Future on CD, and since I felt so bad for never reviewing the tape – it was basically an issue of not having access to a tape player near my desktop and/or not being in my car for more than an hour when not driving it – I bought the disc and figured I’d write it up instead.

It’s a different listening experience, of course. On tape, Attack the Future’s primitive production and condensed crunch reminded me of rehearsal demos, that kind of raw and somehow classically metal immediacy that no other recorded form seems to be able to capture. Also on tape, since most of the songs flow into each other and parts early in the record are revisited later, it was nearly impossible to tell where one song ended and the next at times and there was a general feeling of disorientation that being able to go track by track on a CD clears up. I liked not really knowing what Leeches of Lore were doing, not being able to figure it out. That worked well with the music on Attack the Future, which genre-bends at a moment’s notice between the likes of the Melvins, Slayer, Ennio Morricone and Deep Purple. The trio of Steve Hammond (vocals/guitar; also of Tenderizor), drummer Andy Lutz and keyboardist/vocalist Noah Wolters have a bizarre and unique fluidity to their approach in that these otherwise obnoxious or abrasive turns work for them. On Attack the Future, Hammond, Wolters and Lutz tap into the same kind of charming musical strangeness that made Ween’s early-to-mid-‘90s albums so essential. And they do it heavy.

Whatever format you might choose to experience Attack the Future, be it cassette, CD or digital, understand that it’s not an album to be taken piece by piece. As though Leeches of Lore were cluing listeners to listen to the whole record in one sitting, the first three tracks all start similarly, setting themes. Opener “The Zarn,” “The Worms” and “The Spider” set the tone for Attack the Future both stylistically and in terms of content. Not being privy to a lyric sheet (none included with either the cassette or CD), I don’t know if there’s a narrative at work, but at least through “Night of the Llama” – track seven of the total 10 and boasting a short but killer solo from Wolters in the Jon Lord tradition – the songs move immediately one to the next and sound like a singular work. That works greatly to Leeches of Lore’s favor, as it lends Attack the Future an element of cohesion that makes their oddness not just a fluke or the result of the band’s being out of control in terms of their sound. Leeches of Lore know precisely what they’re doing as the semi-acoustic build of “The Worms,” its memorable falsetto vocals from Hammond and all, crashes headfirst into the cacophony of “The Spider,” and that in turn gives way to the mid-paced Melvins traditionalism of “When the Sky Falls.” Because of that, listening, you’re more willing to follow and see where they’re headed.

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