The whole compliation starts out pretty strong, outdoing Sacrament‘s slow open with an entire cocktease of an intro track, The Passing–the perfect lead into the much anticipated onslaught that is the rest of Wrath. It builds up to and belongs with the next song In Your Words in a very Foreplay/Long Time kind of way that I’m convinced would be the perfect way to open any live show. The build-up effect reminded me of giddily sitting through Ecstacy of Gold in the dark, wondering if I’m about to get pounded by Battery or Master of Puppets.

In Your Words definitely sets out to make a first impression, and the message is clear: hang on to something. Your ears aren’t tricking you — Blythe’s vocals start to resemble actual singing. Singing? Don’t worry…it doesn’t really take anything away from the music, and you realize you’re witnessing something truly new here.

Next up are Set to Fail and Contractor, two badass singles that do a pretty fucking good job of summing up what this album has to offer. Now, there’s absolutely nothing I love more in my metal than a heaping helping of blues, and you can really hear the murder train a comin’ from the ballsy riffs in Set to Fail. The guitar solo follows suit perfectly, and is so sweet you’ll undoubtedly wish it was longer.

Contractor, Contractor, Contractor. If every song sounded exactly like this one, I’d never listen to another CD. This song has cojones in large supply, and I practically climaxed right along with it. The lyrics are great, to boot.

Though Wrath is not as intriguing to me as Sacrament was, it’s probably as good for different reasons, and it has a pretty straight-fucking-forward appeal. Doesn’t touch Ashes, though (can anything?). There are three bonus tracks. If you can get your hands on them, they’re nothing particularly special but worth a listen. My favorite tracks on Wrath overall were Choke Sermon and Contractor with an honorable mention for certain chunks of …well…every other song.

I have few criticisms, so here we go:
One of the things I love about Ashes of the Wake is that it’s 100% listenable; there’s not a single moment I feel the urge to skip through. Wrath doesn’t quite have this going for it. In fact, many of the tracks almost formulaicly build up to these very different-sounding climaxical moments that overshadow the rest of the song, and I often find myself fast forwarding to them so I can really turn up the volume. I don’t want a chunk of the song to be really badass, I want the WHOLE song to be completely badass! Also, there is something to be said for the art of knowing when to end a song, and a few tracks could have used a little more love in this department. After about 85% of a track would play, I would catch myself saying aloud, “OKAY, I GET IT,” reaching hastily for the skip button. I don’t care for the intro to Grace at all — nor anything that sounds remotely like that. <skip>

Last, but not least — this album is a tad less heavy and a pinch more catchy than I was hoping for. It probably has to do with how simple and straightforward it is…I like my shit quirky and complicated and tuned way the fuck down, and these are simply not what this album has going for it. It’s a blunt instrument with wider appeal, but it certainly gets the job done.

Snag it, put it in your car for a week, learn it enough to sing along a couple times, and you’ll be glad you did.

My rating for Wrath: “Pretty badass”