Kingcrimsonprog American Headcharge’s debut album The War Of Art is a much-underrated release from 2001, at the height of the oversaturated Nu Metal scene. The band gained some publicity when Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan remixed their single ‘Just So You Know,’ but never broke as big as they initially seemed to be destined for, and eventually collapsed.

Their style draws influence from artists like Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson as well as touches of early Korn and Deftones beside their normal heavier metal influences. These influences can be heard in the actual songwriting and structuring as well as just in the use of samples and keyboards. For the most part, this is one of the heavier albums to come out during the Nu Metal era and still sounds good to this day.

Singer Cameron ‘Martin Cox’ Heacock has a superb voice and vocal range, handling harsh and melodic vocals equally well. The band are all competent musicians who deliver fun and memorable riffs and simple pounding drumbeats from a former Keyboardist who turned-drummer quickly in the wake of a line up change.

The album is full of great memorable songs, with very few weak moments. If you were deliberately looking for flaws it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that they are a little derivative at times and that the album is perhaps overlong. As a whole though, this is a solid collection of great turn of the century metal songs.

Standout tracks include ‘Americ*nt Evolving Into Useless Psychic Garbage,” which evokes some of the feeling of Irresponsible Hate Anthem as well as “Never Get Caught,” “Seamless,” and “A Violent Reaction” all of which are great examples of the album’s overall sound.

In summary, The War Of Art is a fantastic album that still holds up remarkably well today. It is sort of a shame the band never got any bigger because then this record would likely be hailed as the classic it seems like.