Reaper's Corner in Defiance
by , Jun 5th, 2012 at 11:21 AM (788 Views)
[COLOR=#add8e6]as i have mentioned in previous entries of my blog, i am a metal head. i have not, however, gone into the details of my transformation into the realm of scorching guitar riffs, bone shattering drumming, intestine liquifying bass lines, and near demonic sounding vocals. when i was in high school, a friend happened upon a song called "infected" by Demon Hunter (cool band name huh?) and showed me this song over school computers (seems unreal huh?). i was hooked. i started scouring the internets for info on this band and came up with the following: at that time they had just released their third album, they were (and still are) a Christian metal band (at the time i was searching for my faith and was shocked that this band was Christian), and they were blowing my mind. the triptych, their third, was hailed as their best but i still contend to this day that their self titled was some of their most intense and brutal work to date. Demon Hunter introduced me to [/COLOR][URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kl4hJ4j48s"][COLOR=#00ff00]a whole new world[/COLOR][/URL][COLOR=#00ff00] [/COLOR][COLOR=#add8e6]full of towering giants of the genre like living sacrifice, the godfathers of progressive metal, and zao, without whome the scene would look dramatically different. but i still have a special place in my heart for my first spikey, leathered, death metal love, and so despite my being somewhat dissapointed with their fourth and fifth albums, i continue to follow their releases, even if with somewhat less fervor than i did some years ago, and i buy their albums whenever i find myself available to do so.
to be sure, "storm the gates of hell," and "the world is a thorn," (4 & 5 respectively) weren't bad albums, they just weren't up to snuff with their previous works, however, True Defiance, their latest entry into the genre, is a gargoyle of a different color. in all five of their previous albums ryan clarks lyrics, while somewhat heartfelt and personal, always seemed to step on eggshells. it was like he never would come out and say what he was thinking, he would leave little hints and make you guys. without a doubt, his writing skills are excellent, every word has a place and fits in the puzzle quite nicely, but his lyrics have still been puzzles. you have to twist and turn the song and look at it from seemingly odd angles to get what you think he's really saying, but even then you're not sure if you've got it, or are over/under-analyzing it. well, that's a little different in this album: he maintains a lot of his poeticism, but now he speaks more directly. he started to show a little of this in the world is a thorn, but here his directness is much more apparent, and very refreshing. instead of crafting lyrics for the song, you can really feel him speaking from the mic, the words don't feel like fluff, filler, or simply an instrument to complete the sound, his words carry weight.
the music on their [/COLOR][URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZa_UMCmAOE"][COLOR=#00ff00]first album[/COLOR][/URL] [COLOR=#00ff00][/COLOR][COLOR=#add8e6]was definitely their most brutal, but this album is pretty good too, definitely some of their best work since [/COLOR][URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpngwZE3yw&feature=related"][COLOR=#00ff00]the triptych[/COLOR][/URL][COLOR=#add8e6]. in STGOH the songs felt very cookie cutter, not as fluid as their previous work. they rectified this a little in TWIAT but True Defiance really has the flow that they seem to have lost. this is also some of their most moshable music to date. check out one of the tracks off of this album:
[video=youtube;l76unGjRtBs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l76unGjRtBs&feature=related[/video]
i am definitely enjoying this album. it's not as mind bendingly brutal as their self titled, but it's still a lot of fun, 9/10.[/COLOR]0 Thanks, 0 Likes, 0 Dislikes, 0 Add to Bug Hunter, 0 Grammar, 0 WAPoints








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