In This Moment - Black Widow (2014)

If you thought Blood was as dark as Maria Brink and In This Moment could get, then you are in for a shock as Black Widow takes you for a caustic ride through their unrelenting minds. To say that Black Widow is disturbing is an understatement as this album breaks Maria wide open to her blackened core. The songs, lyric by lyric, shows another side of Maria and what she is willing to reveal that even made me feel uncomfortable and I thought I had heard it all. The words Maria spits are flourished with musical dirges that take In This Moment further than they have ever been with moments of the album that could drive a rave to riffs powerful enough to crash a wall. I want to pick apart the album, showcase its lyrics but I think that would be unfair considering the toxic nature of what is enclosed. I want you the listener to meld into Dirty Pretty, Sexual Hallucination or Sick Like Me and get your own conclusion. Sex Metal Barbie although is aimed at those who have had rather snide things to say about her existence in this scene which I feel that she has wrapped around her middle finger. Natural Born Sinner closes the album and after almost an hour of some of the most unsettling, disturbing music that I feel they could produce they up it one more time. Maria flares her nostrils one more time with her middle finger square in the face. Blood was a breakthrough for the band, artistically and sales, but Black Widow takes their stakes higher and will make them the band that will dominate 2015.