Ballsy Kansas metallers Gulch (who in the interest of full disclosure are publicly related by Scott Alisoglu of Clawhammer PR, who also reviews discs for Blabbermouth and was a contributor to my former place of employment) sound like they’re doing a commercial for Marine recruitment musically on their third album, Uphill Both Ways (Gulchworks Enterprises), but they do so with lyrics dealing with topics from domestic abuse on “Lifehog” to losing your loved ones to the ravages of drugs on “Watching Old Friends Die” and “Tweak.” The songs are mostly anger and testosterone driven, and they make reference to the commercially masculine modern headbanger bands you’d expect: Black Label Society, Down, Pantera, C.O.C., etc. You’ve probably heard these riffs before.

Most of the songs sit comfortably in the four-minute range and rely on a straightforward pop formula. That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all — shit, Black Sabbath songs have choruses too — but the changes on a track like “Edge” are so predictable that even on my first listen I was able to call them out ahead of time. Four cycles of this, change, four cycles of that, chorus, back to the verse, bridge, chorus and so forth. There’s a fine line between familiar-sounding and unoriginal, although I will herald the anti-drug stance of vocalist/guitarist Dean Book — who along with his brother, drummer Duane, had an album out on Century Media back in the day that’s now namedropped in the third sentence of their bio — because given the number of dedications on this album, someone in this band certainly knows something about loss. The Book brothers soldier on, their workman-like metal doing well to earn them the opening slot for whichever radio metal act is making their way through on tour that month.

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