This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Almost every punk band in history has shot at the same targets: Politics, religion, the military, big business, conformity, racism, sexism, thisism, thatism.
But on the third album from SoCal metal-punkers Death By Stereo, singer Efrem Shultz is brave (or suicidal) enough to pick a new fight — with his own fans. “I spill my guts for you,” he howls with condemnation on Wasted Words, a scathing rebuke of punk-rock dilletantes. “Ideas go unheard with every breath I spew … I hope they hit you like a ton of bricks.” These 13 anthemic high-voltage cuts grant Shultz’s wish and then some. In the endless punk desert of soundalike mediocrity, Death By Stereo remain an oasis of uncompromising passion and unstoppable power. Into The Valley Of Death is a 37-minute shotgun wedding between the blistering gallop and spread-finger soloing of old-school thrash-metal, and the eternal punk-rock fury of Shultz’s hanging-judge lyrics and homicidal bellow. In the end, no one emerges unscathed. No one who’s listening, anyhow.
