At All Costs

At All Costs has a news flash for you: The American dream isn't as rosy as it seems, and a bunch of big, bad men are making bank off the war against terror. Thankfully, the Austin-based quintet's music is a little less obvious than its lyrical platitudes. It's Time to Decide, the act's debut full-length on the legendary and newly resurrected metal imprint, Combat Records, is a refreshingly jarring collision of Coheed and Cambria's melodic prog, Avenged Sevenfold's slick mall-core and Daft Punk's vocoder-distorted electronica. The experiment isn't always successful; while some of the group's songs are sincere, impassioned and intelligent lunges for the jugular, most are packed with impenetrable middle-school poetry such as "A fabricated façade out of a perfect world replaces the old" and "Retort to this desire being not for you/My desire is for a revolution." But don't sweat the message, however well intended; just sit back and enjoy the screams.