Surrounded by mountains of amps stacked
and cranked to unhealthy levels, Jucifer can shatter the fibulas of most modern-metal fans by feedback alone. The coed Atlanta duo literally rattles plaster loose, and drummer Edgar Livengood pounds the skins so hard, he's broken bones. On their third LP, the smash-riff-bash stoner rockers have abandoned the borderline pop that sweetened their 1999 debut as well as the hardcore outbursts that walloped 2002's
I Name You Destroyer with a thick, sludgy throb.
If Thine Enemy Hunger starts with the seven-minute slow-grind "She Tides the Deep" and picks up the pace little by little, song by song. On "Lucky Ones Burn," a spare stretch of feedback creaks like a psychedelic experience taking a terrible turn -- though it recovers just as quickly with breathy reassurances from go-go siren Amber Valentine. The big, rough "Antietam" could be the sexiest nervous freakout ever caught on tape.