"Let's make history stop" bellows front man, and hometown boy, Karl Schuback on "Set In Motion", track 7 on MISERY SIGNALS' stupefying new opus "Controller". To my ears, this lyric sums up how this album should be heard: completely independent of everything that has come before it. Forget about "Mirrors" and "Of Malice And The Magnum Heart" and let "Controller" stand on its own... because it will. Like a towering, lumbering, salivating, bloodthirsty beast hell-bent on converting you, by force, to being a fan of MISERY SIGNALS.

Each person, each band, is a product of their own experience. Through these experiences we become the people we are. Something bad, very bad, must have happened to MISERY SIGNALS, because they are very, very angry. Maybe Karl had some border issues, or bad Mexican food. Maybe guitarists Stu Ross and Ryan Morgan were having a hard time getting the perfect tone. Maybe the band as a whole reacted to the lukewarm reception of "Mirrors", their last outing and first with Karl on vocals. Whatever the case, "Controller" is well deserving of its name - it is an unrelenting show of force.

From the time "Nothing" first bursts through the speakers, it is an unavoidable conclusion that something quite special is happening. The production of wunderkid Devin Townsend lends MISERY SIGNALS a crispness, clarity, and razor-like exactness that begs to have the listener methodically dissect the intricacies of every single song on this disc. As an example, and total music nerd moment, check out the subtle (and possibly intentional?) homage paid to U2 in "Set In Motion". Elsewhere, "A Certain Death" is a monolithic display of pure metallic fury, grabbing the listener hard by the throat and just shaking, shaking, shaking. That groove is miles high and nothing will stop it. Clean vocals, usually a staple in Metalcore, are used sparingly and to a stupendous effect, most notably in "Ebb And Flow", a song that coincidentally seems to be a ballad lyrically. Every song is a keeper, though, and the riffage alone could fetch a handsome price if bottled and sold on eBay.

The press release indicates that the band feels "Controller" has a previously untapped aggression to it. After being unable to stop listening to the album and also unable to stop singing its praises to everyone, I have to disagree. MISERY SIGNALS has always had this in them, it just took bad Mexican food (or something) to bring it out. Get into it. Now.