But how often does a friend present you with a slickly packaged demo CD with genre-neutral artwork that she found on the side of the road outside her house one morning? And of all the times that's happened to you (the current count for me: once), how often is that demo CD awesome? I don't know who the hell Jupiter's Wake are, beyond being a quintet of unlovely dudes with questionable facial hair affinities and some City of Ships love (this much I divined from the inner sleeve photo), but their 2010 EP _The Temporal Slide_ has convinced me that I need more friends trolling their gutters for discarded digipaks.

A little (goddammit...) Internet trolling uncovers a bit more of the Wake's identity: they hail from Hagerstown, MD, and they're definitely still playing shows in the area. Their sound is well informed by several styles of modern metal, both domestic and imported. Jonathan McIntire's harsh vocals bristle with unchecked frustration, while the guitars twist and crunch in an effort to punish the audience somewhat more cerebrally. On a couple tracks, such as the stunningly agile "Signals of Change", Joe Becker's bass brings the good stuff rather than settling for a mere supportive role. If Lamb of God and 311 (wait, don't go away!) ever engaged in a steamy backseat make-out session, it might sound a lot like "Living Trivial Days". In fact, if Blythe and Co. ever embraced a doomier, gnarlier sound than their perpetual aggro preset allows, the result could settle comfortably on a split with Jupiter's Wake. On the whole, this EP is a face-ruling first impression, and I hope to hear this band make farther reaching waves in the future.

So get out there people! Curb-crawling is the new MySpace! One man's trash...