Job For A Cowboy - Moon Healer Review

It has been nearly a decade since Arizona aural assailants Job For A Cowboy dropped Sun Eater, an album that really helped to set them apart from their earlier records and allowed them to much more progressive overall.

Enter Moon Healer and they have continued to carve out their extreme alcove with opener “Beyond the Chemical Doorway” being front and center. The track contains ample riffs, vocal intensity, wobbly bass and crushing drums all setting the pace for the subsequent septenary songs.

The album’s themes revolve around hallucinations and the concept of Gnosticism featuring the ability to achieve a state of transcendence, all while this album plays out within the psyche of another’s mind. “Grinding Wheels of Ophanim” isn’t afraid to slow down and let bassist Nick Schendzielos do his best Sean Malone impression. Progressive death metal bass is tremendous when done right.

The mouthful that is “The Sun Gave Me Ashes So I Sought Out The Moon” is oddly enough, one of the more straightforward pieces on this album, pushing extreme boundaries at every opportunity without sacrificing the overall structure for some unnecessary noodling as is common within the genre.

Guitar duo Alan Glassman and Tony Sannicandro are majorly on top of their collective game, playing off of each other as often as they can, often led into battle by vocalist Jonny Davy before giving way to the great and hypnotic vibes that are imbued by the purple on the album’s cover on “Into the Crystalline Depths.”

Job For A Cowboy have returned stronger than ever on their fifth album, making it seem like the band has not lost a step in their time away from the recording studio. Moon Healer is the exact kind of album that fans of Sun Eater wanted as it continues so well the progressive and technical sounds that were developed all those many years ago. Job For A Cowboy are back with a vengeance!

(released February 23, 2024 on Metal Blade Records)