Zodiac Mindwarp meets Megadeth, with hints of Dio and lashings of politics? That’s New Yorkers Diablo Royale, who provide today’s Track Of The Day. Click here for previous Tracks Of The Day.

A couple years back, these dudes sent me a copy of their first album to review. Only it wasn’t actually their first album, it was a static-y DVD-R of the band bashing their way through a set of their sleazeball thrash-doom wreck ‘n’ roll, in front of an angry crowd of drunks and criminals.

It reminded me of Zodiac Mindwarp And The Love Reaction’s first gig [captured in splotchy VHS on their Pandora’s Grisly Handbag CD/DVD compilation], wherein five Nazi biker thugs with grease for blood slug each other, make hideous, drug-damaged noise, and threaten the lives of the half a dozen terrified punters lucky/unlucky enough to catch a legend in the making. It was like that, only with Megadeth-y riffs.

Well, that first album – a self-titled, self-funded deal – did eventually get released, and spread around the world like a social disease. The five-man, multi-cultural gang known as Diablo Royale toured the US, invariably tearing the puny roofs off of whatever dives they were playing in.

Perhaps more importantly, they built a sizable following for themselves in their home town – New York City. Given the 50 zillion bands all jockeying for top-dog position there, that’s an impressive feat.

Flash forward a couple years and Diablo Royale decide to follow-up on their battering street-metal debut. The first one was recorded in the aptly named Sweatshop, a rehearsal space/studio in Brooklyn. Why screw with tradition? The band went back into the bowels of the ‘Shop to record Greedy Dogs, their monstrous sophomore album. Politically tinged, but wrapped in ornate, Dio-esque metal-speak, Dogs is angry and smart and rocks, as Mike Monroe would say, like fuck.

It might also be a concept album.

“A lot of the inspiration for this album came from all of the bullshit going on,” says vocalist Adrian Barrios [the rest of the band are guitarists G-Man and Choy, bassist Sweetleaf and drummer Mike Sankari].

“Big companies getting their asses kissed while the little guy is hung out to dry. That’s why I made the artwork the way I did, the people that are acting like they are looking out for us, just aren’t.”

Well, right on. Conceptual or not, Greedy Dogs is a slavering beast of an album, as aggro as Pantera, as slick and sleazy as their neighbours’ sex slaves, and as heavy as at least two tons of bricks.

Here, courtesy of the band, is the title track:

http://rapidshare.com/files/290065873/02-Greedy_Dogs.mp3

If you like it, here’s where to go for more: www.myspace.com/diabloroyalerock

– Sleazegrinder