It's been seven years since we had a new album from Australia's Elm Street, but in 2023 we have their third album, The Great Tribulation. It is like their second album, 2016's Knock 'em Out...With a Metal Fist, in that the guitar work is crunchy and melodic, the riffs are built on traditional metal songwriting with a thrash bite, and the vocals border on death metal in a Teutonic way. Just like the last album, I enjoy the music on The Great Tribulation, it kicks a lot of ass, but I find the singing to be a monotonous bellow that doesn't vary much and quickly gets tedious. The songwriting is more varied, a nice development, but I would prefer if the vocals were more varied as well. This band showed a lot of promise with their debut, but has settled into a less entertaining groove since then.
