Having
found
the
group's
I
Am/Roadrunner
Records
debut
to
be a
rather
average
exercise
in
post-punk
aggression
with
little
in
the
way
of
quality
songwriting,
I
had
extremely
low
expectations
for AMEN's
sophomore
effort,
a
release
that
vocalist
Casey
Chaos
has
very
ambitiously
dubbed
"the
most
violent
album
in
major
label
history".
Produced,
once
again,
by Ross
Robinson
(who
also
heads
up
the I
Am
label,
freshly
affiliated
with
Virgin
Records
after
a
less-than-amicable
split
with
Roadrunner),
We
Have
Come
For
Your
Parents
is
pretty
much
a
continuation
of
the
direction
the
band
had
started
on
the
aforementioned
debut,
albeit
with
a
noticeable
improvement
in
the
overall
sound,
which
is a
bit
fuller
and
thicker
this
time
around.
...
Although
AMEN
should
be
credited
for
pursuing
a
style
that
has
little
in
common
with
their
Southern
Californian
counterparts,
the
group's
tuneless,
noisy
approach
gets
tiresome
very
quickly,
with
Casey's
obnoxious,
high-pitched
screaming
proving
to
be
more
irritating
than
effective,
in
the
process
adding
a
touch
of
abrasiveness
to
the
songs
that
is
bound
to
turn
off
many
a discriminating listener.
Unsurprisingly,
there
are
no
obvious
"singles"
either,
leaving
one
to
ponder
exactly
how Virgin
Records
will
be
able
to
successfully
market
a
band
that,
on
its
debut,
shifted
less than 15,000
copies,
particularly
when
the
expectations
this
time
around
are
so
much
higher.
...
So
is this indeed "the
most
violent
album
in
major
label history"? In my mind, that honor still
belongs
to SLAYER
and PANTERA,
both
of
whom
have
made
careers
out
of
issuing
crushingly-heavy
albums
that
have
consistently
passed
the
gold
sales-mark,
while
bands
like
AMEN
continue
to
produce largely unlistenable, musically inferior material
that
has
no
chance
of
ever
living
up
to
the
substantial
hype
that
has
preceded
it.
