My immediate impression when I first saw the cover to 24-7 SPYZ's latest album "Heavy Metal Soul by the Pound", was that I was about to listen to some hard core heavy metal. I don't know if it was the skull and crossbones or the scary looking guys on the back cover or even the chicken's feet, but I soon found that I was severely disillusioned. A few seconds into the first song the initial Heavy Metal vibes turned into a 311 style rap. Sure, Anthrax and Public Enemy could pull off the rap/metal mix with "Bring the Noise", but 24-7 SPYZ's sounds plain old cheezy. I didn't let this totally ruin the album for me, so I kept listening, but unfortunately it got worse. The next song totally changed my image of this band being the least bit scary, maybe you'll understand what I mean from its title, "Love and Peace". I couldn't help but laugh when I pictured the guys on the back cover that looked all intimidating singing the chorus to this song, "Love and peace and everything, when the world becomes your castle but your not the king." There were way too many styles presented in this album for me to enjoy this album. If they had stuck with the metal part I might have actually liked it, but the soul stuff ruined it. I felt like I was listening to a mix of Faith No More, Pentera, Boys to Men, and 311. Sure I like most of these groups separately but I'd like to keep it that way. My favorite part of this album was the song title "El Lame", because I thought maybe this should be the title of the album. But who knows, maybe you like bubble gum metal music, if so you might want to check out 24-7 SPYZ's when they come to the Axis in Boston next month. I'm kind of curious what the crowd might look like, but I doubt anything would surprise me now.