Keelhaul are a different lot from their noisecore brothers. Instead of being your average music-and-vocals band, Keelhaul is going more into the instrumental area. Granted, there are vocals to every song on the album, but more than a handful of lines it never gets. Which is fine with me, because Keelhaul`s hardcore`ish vocals to me sound out of style with their highly skilled technical outings. Not surprisingly, because if you have three(!) guitarists you might as well come up with something that shows it.

II is an album that is literally jam-packed full with crazy riffs, grooves, twists and twirls and what not more. Freakish and fanatic all in once, they still manage not to overdo it all, and where a band like Cryptopsy is master in the death/noisecore crossover-genre, Keelhaul rules the instrumental rock/noisecore crossover-genre.

But do not mind these terms, just listen to the music. There is plenty of diversity, astounding rhythms ("Some Day Some Other Place" and "Practicing" as my favourites) and unexpected hooks to make the 34 minutes run by way to quick, instrumental or not.

Keelhaul are top-notch and there`s not a great lot of bands that can even approach what they are doing. I wouldn`t mind if they brought the vocals back to a bare minimum, but on the other hand, I flat-out wish that every hardcore band would sound like this. If you like to feel adrenalin pumping through your body, you will without doubt love to have II blasting your eardrums.