Job for a Cowboy – Moon Healer (Review)

This is the fifth album from US death metallers Job for a Cowboy.

Ten years on from 2014’s Sun Eater and Job for a Cowboy have finally returned. It’s been worth the wait, let me tell you.

On Moon Healer Job for a Cowboy travel further along the progressive death metal journey that they fully embarked upon on Sun Eater. Professional and accomplished, Moon Healer displays a refreshed and vibrant Job for a Cowboy, confident in their ability to create layered and multifaceted progressive death metal.

This they do very well. The songs are energetic, dynamic, and feeling-rich, alternating through a variety of moods and atmospheres. All the while Job for a Cowboy never neglect the fact that this is death metal, first and foremost, just a progressive, expansive version of it. The well-crafted songs combine brutal aggression with colourful melodies, progressive texture, and evocative bass. The latter is a striking feature of the music, but certainly not the only strength that Moon Healer boasts.

Heavy riffs and angular rhythms clash and merge, while the wandering bass seeks its own adventures within the carnage. The drums blast and rage, or provide a nuanced backbone, as the rest of music unfolds in a mix of complex depth and brute force aggression. It’s great to hear the band’s charismatic vocalist again, and his voice has lost none of its character or impact.

Like Sun Eater, Moon Healer‘s stylistic reference points are still relevant – Death, Gorguts, Cynic, Atheist, Beyond Creation, Obscura, Rivers of Nihil, etc. – but Moon Healer fleshes out its own personality and well-rounded sound to a fuller extent. It also has a really top notch production that lets the music breathe.

It’s like Job for a Cowboy have never been away. Seamlessly picking where they last left off, they have produced a shockingly high quality album. If you’re a fan of progressive death metal, then Moon Healer is one you definitely need in your life.