Band:	SSS
Album:	Limp.Gasp.Collapse.
Style:	Crossover thrash metal
Release date:	November 10, 2014
A review by:	wormdrink414

01. For Your Own Good
02. Dead Wood [feat. Jeff Walker]
03. Burn All Fields
04. Shape OF Things To Come
05. The Sleeper Awakes
06. Stress Of Excess
07. Inside The Box
08. Pig Owned
09. Beige
10. Power Down
11. Slave To Persuasion
12. Good Books
13. Capacity Overload
14. Crushed By Drudgery

Limp. Gasp. Collapse. is SSS's most modern-sounding album so far. Not that crossover hasn't been going through a more popular resurgence and isn't, on it's own, "modern-sounding" now, it's just that this thing seems to borrow more from metal-styles and production-styles championed after the mid to late 80s.

It also seems more like a thoroughly metal album to me. It's a bit more rhythmical, more down-tuned, has longer tracks, sports some more solos and crunch, and even has some occasional backing vocals of the high-pitched, screamy variety. It's thicker and more technical-sounding overall. It feels a bit more cleanly put together than what they've done before, owing I'm sure in large part to their new line-up.

They're a little less lean sounding and a bit more mean sounding because of it, but to be fair, it's hard to imagine SSS ever coming across as too mean. Not really, at least. Wouldn't fit their style. There's a more snotty, insolent aspect to what they do than any kind of hateful one. They're a band that specializes in quasi-anarchic FUN and seem a bit more young people-friendly because of it. This is darker in tone, but that doesn't get in the way of the fun aspect at all. What they play is the kind of stuff to jam to while drinking Slurpees and walking around with skateboards. And there's nothing wrong with that, if anything it's just another way they strike me as a successful nostalgia act.

They're revivalists plain and simple, and that might justifiably be a turn-off for some. They aren't messing around with the traditional crossover form or other jargons or anything (even though they did with the excellent "Strangenotes" on their previous full-length, and do on the stomping closer "Crushed By Drudgery" here), but it's been proved a good number of times that the so-called revivalists nowadays can shred just as hard as the older groups whose styles they're ostensibly reviving, so who cares? This is a completely unpretentious and straightforward kind of thing, and those are always a treat. Hella riffs and stuff here.