I always thought the Murder City was Detroit. "The Murder City Devils" are from Seattle, and play a greasy rawk in a vein I haven’t quite heard before. Repeated listens open the door and adjust the mindset to align with this manic release of dark, brooding rock. It’s got balls, with dirt in the gears and blood in the grill. The kind of music that might run you down in the middle of the breakdown lane.

The howls in the beginning of the scraping “Cradle to the Grave” belay the torment of intensity that singer Spencer Moody portrays. “When you're sleeping in a truck stop/ When you're living in the parking lots/ It’s hard to pull/ It’s hard to pull yourself up/ When your down this LOWWWWWWW!” - enter said howl again. Spencer is not screaming, more like yelling which will grate against the nerves some upon long exposures, but it’s done with emotion. I like ’em. I think they give the music an urgency it would lack with a more proficient technical singer. He walks the line of being a singer, but is more a vocalist with a bit of range.

The first track, “I Want A Lot Now (So Come On),” has a screamed anthem that for some reason gives me that juvenile drunk on a Friday night feel of Kiss’s “Detroit Rock City” (and Detroit is the Murder City - connections, connections). There are weird subtle shades of old-school country (think Johnny Cash on some low quality heroin) in the song “Dear Hearts,” and warped-out surf twang in “Hey Sailor,” but all are done with guts and tempo which might shed some light on the influence that spawned "The Murder City Devils."

The drumming is very solid, and often sets the rabid pace with the intros (i.e. “Want A Lot Now” and “Left Hand Right Hand”), and generally do a lot to carry the load and keep it moving along the path of desperation. "The Murder City Devils" offer up a spooky Halloween sounding organ on tracks like “18 Wheels” and “Every Shitty Thing,” which give these songs a slightly different feel without straying too far from the aim of the ". . .Devils."

A personal favorite track is the all-out rocker “Another Round On You,” with the line “Some people were born to Rock and Roll.” Any band that can work the phrase “Rock and Roll” into a song and make it sound as tuff as this gets my approval. All songs on “Empty Bottles Broken Hearts” do undeniably rock - a bit sameish at times, but rock none-the-less. And when you're carving out a niche like "Murder City Devils," you are allowed to mine your own sound for all its worth.

As a whole, a very solid listen. At times (especially when they drag the pace out), the vocals and overall creepy abrasiveness get tiresome through a whole listen, but “Broken Bottles Empty Hearts” has enough redeemable material to wade through the molasses.

It’s still a rock band, and a somewhat original rock band at that, with the keys adding some occasional mood shift, but still a rock band, meaning they are locked into some typical progressions and approaches which they rarely stray from. But it is a proven formula for rock, and rock they do. What more could you ask for?