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 clichés. 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
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