by Greg Prato
Coalesce fans have been waiting long and hard for the emergence of the band's fourth full-length overall, 2009's Ox. After all, it was nearly an entire decade since the last full-length offering from the band, 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening, appeared. But here the lads are once more, with all the complicated metal by way of hardcore than the listener can handle...before the average person's brain overloads and explodes. And Ox won't disappoint longtime Coalesce supporters, as there's simply oodles of screaming, riffing, and brutal beats, especially on such eardrum rupturing ditties as the album opener, "The Plot Against My Love," "The Villain We Won't Deny," and "The Purveyor of Novelty and Nonsense." If it's challenging extreme metal you want, it's challenging extreme metal you'll get throughout Ox.