Artist:  Job for a Cowboy 

Venue:  Manchester Academy, Manchester

Date:  12 February 2010 

Although the type of music known as metal that we all know and love has only been around for the last 40 years or so, the divisions within the genre seem to have been present for so long, they seem to be as old as time itself.  This is seemingly now more the case than ever with journalists and music media outlets, hell-bent on pigeon-holing everything, seemingly inventing a new sub-genre every few weeks by randomly picking a word from the dictionary and attaching the suffix – core to it.

From the conflicts between punks and rockers in the 70’s to the confrontations between hardcore kids and metalheads in the 80’s, we now seemingly have a new division to contend with – ‘metallers’ and ‘scene kids’. A difference that is apparently based as much on fashion and age as it is on musical taste, Job for a Cowboy are a band that have been at the centre of this divide for a while now and have had to put up with all the crap that has come right along with it since their debut album Genesis hit the shelves in 2007 and tonight it seems that shows no sign of dying down. 

Amongst the crowd there are many Job for a Cowboy fans and those people have every right to walk away pleased with the band’s performance but there are just as many of the band’s detractors – from both sides of the divide – whose comments I overheard sum up the conundrum Job for a Cowboy (and many other new extreme metal bands, for that matter) face today.  Too popular for some ‘scene kids’ and not death-metal enough for some of the ‘metallers’, it seems like for some people, Job for a Cowboy are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place for now.

If a band got big by embracing the internet (only smart in today’s day and age if you ask me) or have a primarily younger fan base or look a certain way then it doesn’t really make a difference and what should really matter is how a band sounds and tonight, Job for a Cowboy please their existing fan base but are unlikely to win many new fans. They do their job well and churn out just over a half hour of brutal death metal and leave no doubt in my mind of the ridiculousness of the ‘not death metal enough’ argument and could only be considered as such for not actually being Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, etc. The band put in a solid, if not fantastic, performance tonight but remain for many a band you either like or you don’t and I’m sure the band themselves would probably want it no other way.

Review by: Adam G

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