Victory Records' latest CD release is by the Canadian band A Perfect Murder. You might notice one difference about the band, and that is their new vocalist, and as Victory likes to tell us, he's an American. And with the new vocalist comes a new direction of music for A Perfect Murder. Gone are their days of hardcore music with solos.

From the first track, "Strength Through Vengeance," it's obvious that A Perfect Murder have taken a key interest in Pantera. Their music is a mix of Pantera-inspired metal with metalcore. New vocalist Kevin Randel really seems to try to sound a lot like Philip Anselmo throughout the entire CD, and most of the time, he can do it pretty well. The problem with Randel is he thinks he can perform well on his clean vocals. His terrible singing on "Wake Up And Die" completely ruin a majority of the song and almost make you laugh at him trying to pull the clean vocals off. At least he doesn't venture into it too much.

Musically, listening to "Snake Eyes" you'll think your listening to a bad Pantera song. In the end, A Perfect Murder is just missing something musically. They just can't pull the Pantera sound off really well and it shows on "Path Of Resistance," where they ditch that sound and actually sound quite good with a nice solo in the middle of the track. It's probably the best track because it's the only song that doesn't sound like another band they ripped off. If A Perfect Murder were to venture into that direction, they'd sound a lot better and not like every band that tries to sound like Pantera. Also, the CD's cover also seems to have an art design similar to the new Silverstein disc, just a different color scheme.

In the end, A Perfect Murder just aren't their own band and seem to be going through the motions. Nothing about Strength Through Vengeance is really special because it all sounds like other bands out there. If you want to listen to something like this, go pick up an old Pantera CD. At least that won't disappoint you.