Review: blessthefall – His Last Walk (2007)

Blessthefall is a group of young adults from Arizona who came together to crafted some great friggin’ music. I found them on MTV2 late one night, sitting in my buddy Dietrich’s apartment, when their video for ‘Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad’ aired.

I was floored. The song opened strong, carried strong, and finished strong. I was so impressed, I flipped open my phone and downloaded the song from my cellular provider’s music store as soon as the video was over. It wasn’t long after that I got my hands on the full album.

‘A Message to the Unknown’ opens the CD and is brutal as hell. Screams and melodic vocals with double bass kicks and all sorts of heaviness around it come together to form a perfect song. I was amazed at how well a band could hit the mark like this. The energy overflows and this was just the first song!

The aforementioned ‘Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad’ opens just as strong as ‘Message…’ and is just as solid. I said earlier that when I first heard the song, I was impressed as hell. The song is so good, I can throw it in my playlist every now and then on my commute home and I’ll never skip it. Double bass kicks litter the track, sandwiching the vocalist’s (Mabbit) incredible screams. An elevated guitar solo for a bridge connects the opening end of the song to the equally intense ending, with more double bass kicks and a ferocious outro. Absolutely amazing.

‘Higinia’ is heavy just the same, with an intense anthem (“You will not die!”) and screams abound. The energy is preserved from the first two tracks and you wonder if it will ever fade. But do you want it to? I didn’t. So far, so good, right? So why does it still happen anyway?

‘Could Tell a Love’ is where the energy – nay, the insanity, begins to dwindle. It’s still heavy, with screams and great riffs, but Mabbit’s melodic work begins to eclipse his screams more in this song and it is here where we begin to see a shift from the metalcore to the post-hardcore.

I kind of have mixed feelings toward ‘Rise Up.’ The tone shifts away (but not completely away) from the heavy screaming and more toward those clichéd, angst-y sounding vocals that I am far from a fan of.

‘Times Like These’ dumps the sound of ‘Rise Up’ and echoes ‘Could Tell a Love,’ with alternating screams and… how do I put this, better melodic vocals.

‘Pray’ has an impressive acoustic thing going before a bad-ass electric riff takes over and ‘With Eyes Wide Shut,’ though reminding me of ‘Rise Up,’ is a unique and quiet by comparison ballad.

‘Black Rose Dying’ is worth mentioning, but the closer, ‘His Last Walk,’ is a brutal assault on your ears with some bad-ass choir singing (reminds me of chant music) in the background as Mabbit’s screams slowly fade away.

I used to think the first couple tracks were the album’s only high points, but for the most part, blessthefall’s debut album is spot on. They are much better as a metalcore group and I think they should keep it heavy from now on. If the whole disc was ‘Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad,’ sure I might say something about variety (which this album surely has, in spades) but being “too metal” is never a bad thing, especially when it’s mastered so well.

The band has a new singer and, apparently, has finished work on their follow-up album, due for release sometime this fall. We’ll see what happens.

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Review: Blinded Colony – Bedtime Prayers (2007)

I don’t know how I happened upon Blinded Colony, but I do know one thing: those damn Swedes know how to make music.

The band’s second studio album starts off pretty quick and I am reminded of another favourite from Sweden: Soilwork. The sound of the introductory ‘My Halo,’ guitar-wise, sounds so much like Soilwork it’s not even funny. But I loved “Sworn to a Great Divide” so who gives a shit? Anyway, ‘My Halo’ is a great track. It’s heavy and full of screams and melodic choruses.

‘Bedtime Prayers’ is probably my favorite track off the album. I had this crazy thought enter my mind when I first heard this song: the lead singer, Schuster, sounds like the Three Days Grace guy, Adam Gontier. ‘Bedtime Prayers’ opens with a Soilwork-sounding riff and clean vocals by Schuster that sound just like Gontier. Of course, when the screaming starts, I was reminded that this wasn’t that other awesome band and I began to wonder what 3DG would sound like if they went more metal. I guess we’ll never know.

Anyway, the song is great and so is the rest of the album. Each song has a perfect blend of powerful screams and clean vocals, with catchy, but familiar, riffs, inspired by Sweden’s more internationally known acts, In Flames and Soilwork. If you’re a fan of Sweden and their unique style of melodic death metal, add Blinded Colony to your wishlist.

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Review: The Autumn Offering – Requiem (2009)

I picked up “Fear Will Cast No Shadow” last year and, for the most part, I thought the CD was OK. I didn’t know much about TAO before McChesney, apart from the single ‘Embrace the Gutter,’ but I thought as a “metal” group, TAO was OK and that “Fear Will Cast No Shadow” was mediocre at best. They were good enough, though, to warrant my interest in their follow-up, “Requiem.’” I picked it up a couple weeks ago, loaded it up and was surprised.

The album starts off with ‘Curtain Hits the Cast,’ a heavy song with side-by-side vocal tracks: one clean and melodic, the other growling and awesome. The song has a catchy opening riff and a bad-ass drum sequence and guitar solo in the bridge. ‘Narcosis’ carries the torch, with an opening solo and all-pervading double bass kicks. The track has a great down-tempo bridge and continues the side-by-side dirty/clean vocals that ‘Curtain’ had.

‘Venus Mourning’ opts to alternate the melodic singing and McChesney’s growls rather than have the two play on top of each other. The song opens a little slower and feels like it might be closer to a metal-ish ballad before McChesney’s clean singing yields to his screams and the pace picks up a third in. McChesney’s clean vocals pick up again in the middle of the song, but with the double-bass kicks in the background, I wasn’t sure what kind of song I was listening to. He could have done all screams instead and it would have worked just as well. The breakdown at the end consists of a piano track, some light drums and a slighty distorted (read: raised treble, lowered bass) vocals.

The rest of the CD carried the aforementioned torch all the way to the end without missing a beat. The album is much better than ‘Fear Will Cast No Shadow’ – it’s heavier, harder, grittier, louder, darker… y’know, better! If you didn’t like ‘Fear…’ as much as you thought or wanted to, give The Autumn Offering a second chance and pick up ‘Requiem.’ If the album has any shortcomings, it’s the overall time: not even forty minutes. All of the songs are great, and maybe some of them sounded better short of three minutes as opposed to being dragged out to four, but expect to change CDs sooner than you might have expected – especially if you have a longer commute.

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(Image provided by Victory Records)

Review: Threat Signal – Under Reprisal (2006)

Threat Signal debuted a few years ago with “Under Reprisal,” a masterpiece if I do say so myself. Threat Signal is an experience second to none and, when compared to all 285+ artists in my personal library, no one comes close. Echoing my sentiments for Sweden’s Scar Symmetry, I cannot find anyone else to match the ferocity of Canada’s Threat Signal.

The opening track, ‘Rational Eyes,’ is an in-your-face assault, mixed with hard riffs, great screams, great drumming, and great melodic vocal work from lead Jon Howard. Yes, it’s melodic death metal, which is quite possibly my favourite genre and this CD is quite possible my one favourite out of everything I have.

‘As I Destruct’ opens like an off-time mess (no qualms here!) and ‘One Last Breath’ opens with a shotgun blast before unloading its melodic beauty through your speakers.

‘Seeing Red’ is a fun and quick song but it’s the fifth track, one ‘A New Beginning’ that I vote the best track on the album. Not just because it’s the first song I heard from them on their mySpace, but because it’s perfect. Opening with a light intro, the real meat of the song is Howard’s screaming and the thick riffs behind him. The track is 4 ½ minutes of delicious goodness, with hard bass thumps that will rock your trunk if you have a good set-up in your car.

Following is ‘Counterbalance,’ another damn good song, and after that is ‘Inane,’ a close tie for first when it comes to the album’s greatest song. Clocking in at over six minutes, ‘Inane’ is all screams until around 2 ½ minutes in, when the vocals end and the guitar work by McKnight and Rich Howard take over. The outro is over three minutes long and is all solos and riffs. Each time I listen to this track, I question my vote for best song.

‘Now’ and ‘Faceless,’ while good, are somewhat forgettable for me. ‘Haunting’ is a great track but mainly because the demo I heard of it before I purchased the CD stuck with me so well. The closer, ‘When All is Said and Done’ is simply magnificent.

Threat Signal debuts strong with “Under Reprisal,” which I consider one of the greatest works I have in my collection. The band, though, has suffered quite the line-up change in losing their guitarist McKnight and their drummer. We’ll just have to wait and see what the band has to offer when their follow-up, “Vigilance,” drops this August.

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Review: Darkest Hour - The Eternal Return (2009)

Darkest Hour is phenomenal. 'Deliver Us' is a bad-ass CD, with a kick-ass opening (Doomsayer), some bad-ass singles (Demon(s), Ethereal Drain, Paradox with Flies) and some wild cover art. Going back to 2005, I found something just as bad-ass: 'Convalescence.' And with 2009 here, Darkest Hour is keeping the two-year gap between releases a-going with their newest addition, 'The Eternal Return.'

One thing you'll notice is that D.H. hasn't lost a thing. None of the band's appendages have grown numb over the years; all the blood is flowing as it should and the group is as united as ever. The disc is, from start to finish, loud, hard, heavy and kick-ass.

The other thing you'll notice, upon completion, is that there are no intermissions. In 'Undoing Ruin,' you had the acoustic instrumental 'Pathos' and the heavier instrumental, 'Ethos.' In 'Deliver Us,' you had the T.S. Eliot-themed 'Light at the Edge of the World.' In 'Eternal Return,' you have no breaks, no instrumentals - only a collection of ten hard-hitting songs, complete with great solos, catchy riffs, insane drums and the signature vocals of one John Henry.

The disc opens strong with 'Devolution of Flesh' and 'Death Worship,' and the strong 'Tides' follows with a time-change and a kick-ass solo in the middle. The even stronger 'No God' follows and is phenomenal, with a distinct intro, heavy verses and a great bridge segment that preceeds that signature melody you heard in the beginning of the track.

'Bitter' is quick bridge between the first half of the album and the second, but don't interpret that as if the tone or the sound of the disc changes. Nay, the heavy keeps coming and continues till the very last second of the kick-ass 'Into the Grey.'

Darkest Hour is a one-of-a-kind group and, simply put, a master of the metalcore genre. I have two words concerning their latest release: buy it.

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Review: DevilDriver - Pray for Villains (2009)

My only experience with DevilDriver was with 'Last Kind Words' and it wasn't even as far back as 2007, when the album came out. It was a year later when I played 'Clouds Over California' on Rock Band for 360. I got the CD, listened to it, and liked it for the most part. I didn't consider myself a fan or anything, but it was something I'd listen to if I wanted. Now, having gotten my hands on their newest outing, 'Pray for Villains,' you can call me a fan - because this CD kicks too much ass for one to handle.

I listen to it today while I was at work and I listened to the rest during my thirty-minute commute home. I'm not going to break it down song by song like I usually do due to the intermission between work and the drive and home, but I will due what I can to convey to whoever reads this that the new album, when it drops July 14th, is a must-have for any metal fan out there.

The disc is hard and heavy and it was the last few songs, namely 'Bitter Pill,' 'Teach Me to Whisper,' and the closer 'I See Belief' that stuck out the most, probably because of the strange ability the tracks have to induce headbanging. The double bass kicks, for some reason, is what lifts each track to the peaks that they achieve. Not to disregard the talent of everyone else in the group, but it was bass that prompted the headbanging and the joy I felt for another job well done, (that being locating solid, kick-ass music).

If you liked 'Last Kind Words,' you'll love 'Pray for Villains.' If you like metal at all, you'll love 'Pray for Villains.'

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