Reviewed March 3, 2001
Perhaps my own straightedger views have influenced my views of Spineshank's sophomore release, The Height of Callousness . It doesn't really matter, since the album is one of the best nu metal releases of 2000 regardless.

Callousness  adds a much more industrial tilt to the Deftones-derived sound of their first album. Jonny Santos sends his voice through the vocoder for most of the album while drummer Tommy Decker keeps a tight beat with heavy-ass drums and drum machines. Throw in sometimes churning, sometimes start-stop guitar and bass, and Spineshank provides a soundscape that you know is influenced by Static-X and Slipknot, but is more than different enough to call unique.

But the thing that draws me most to Spineshank is the straightedger lyrics. (For those of you who are a little out of the loop, straightedge is a belief that calls for no drug, alcohol or tobacco use, among other things.) Maybe that's not what Tommy Decker had in mind when he wrote most of the words, but that's the way I see it. I say that because a friend of mine got to see them live, where Jonny asked if anyone in the audience had any weed. But there's no denying I have a valid interpretation of the most obvious song, 'Synthetic':

Synthetic solution
Synthetic, I'll become
Synthetic, if it makes this go away

That's not the only song. Take a listen to almost any of the tracks, and you can extract a straightedge influence. Yes, I'm probably wrong about the interpretation, but I don't care - it makes me happier listening to it. Go get the rest of the lyrics here.

With meaningful lyrics and an excellent industrial-infused metal backdrop, Spineshank have a CD I just can't stop playing. The Height of Callousness  gets 4.5 of 5 stars.