Now that you know a little bit more about the man, you can understand and appreciate what he's doing in his newest attack on the music world with his band The Alien Blakk. Rounding out The Alien Blakk is former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and Flotsam & Jetsam drummer Craig Nielson. Now with all this metal muscle, you might be expecting the band's debut album Modes of Alienation to be an all out metal assault, but it's not. Hey, cheer up kid; I've got some good news. The beautiful thing about this album is that it takes numerous genres of music and adds a much needed metal kick to the balls! While the main flow of the album is hard rock infused with some metal, there are also some experimental tracks trying out some bluesy and country influences.

The near 48 minute instrumental Modes of Alienation is truly a remarkable album. Like I previously mentioned, I'm impressed that with all the metal muscle these guys have, they don't use it to dominate the album but instead, use it to build a frame around other genres, all while keepin' it metal! As it's described, the album is "emotional and powerful guitar oriented instrumental metal." The opener "Repilhate" is non-stop metal. While the bass and drums remind me of anything from Fear Factory's Obsolete album, Joshua's guitar playing took it into a totally different direction. "For Max" has a soft and somewhat country ballad opening and is quickly taken over by touching and moving guitar orchestrations. It's a heartfelt song with infectious heart string pulling riffs. The most affluent country influence is "Twin, Twang, Twung". While I'm not that much of a country fan, this song is rather enjoyable-again, maybe it's because it's coming from three guys with the right amount of metal in their veins.

An experimental and heavy as hell track is "The Thing". The progressive and dirty melodies of the song grab your legs and pull you flat on your face. This song paints a pretty picture for me, one of in an icy cold death box being stalked and attacked by a mysterious creature. Perhaps this song was written after watching The Thing (?). A soulful and sorrowful ballad is "In the Name Of". With its climactic guitar solos and its morose undertones, this is probably my favorite song on here.

I am very impressed with The Alien Blakk's ability to produce songs with so much depth and meaning behind them but not saying a word to help convey them but instead the music is used to do that. On May 5th, 2006 do yourself a favor and pick this soon to be classic album up!