YES INDEED, THE NEW SHOWDOWN RECORD WILL BE REALLY GOOD, MUSCLE T’S BE DAMNED

Southern hard rock / metallers The Showdown have a new record out August 19th called Backbreaker, and it’s heavier than anything they’ve done so far — not that their prior material wasn’t heavy or was bad by any means (in fact, Temptation Come My Way ranked among my favorite albums of ’07), but the new stuff just hammers. It’s punishingly heavy, but artfully so; other than singer David Bunton’s pectoral-highlighting wardrobe choice, this isn’t a band that seems to feel the need to remind you of its masculinity at every turn. This is just really fucking good heavy music — this time around the band is channeling more Slayer and Metallica than Ratt and Motley Crue, but the results are no less catchy nor do they come across as trend-following. The Showdown have the songwriting maturity of a much, much older band.

Listen to the three new songs on their MySpace page.

-VN