Whenever music critics write about metal, they typically end up using words such as “bludgeoning,” “thrashing,” or “bone-crushing.” I won’t use these to describe metal supergroup Down’s Over the Under because these words do not speak to the record’s strengths.

Down’s metal is not as flashy and solo-centric as some metal bands, and that’s fine. The focus is on composition rather than showmanship, and new parts to songs unfold like movements in a classical piece rather than typical verse/chorus arrangements. The result is that things rarely go stale. Every moment is calculated to be harder, then harder still.

For that reason, though, Over the Under can be numbing. The sameness of the more aggressive tracks takes its toll, and you’re almost not even paying attention by the time the album’s epic closer, “Nothing in Return,” rolls in with a slick electric piano and compressed, fusion-jazz guitar licks before the chorus crashes the party and destroys everything in its path, sounding as if a mid-’70s Santana ballad were kidnapped and tortured by Alice in Chains.

Down is at its best when it relaxes a bit and falls into the more hard rock/grunge groove of “Never Try,” a Soundgarden song that never was. The track, sixth in the sequence after five songs of Down flexing its metal muscles, comes just in time. The waltz rhythm and the swing-ish bridge show Down’s adventurous side, matching brawn with brain to create something that might not be bone crushing, but is very much interesting.