Canadian melodic thrasher Titans Eve have released a couple of albums independently so far with the last, “Life Apocalypse”, being a thoroughly enjoyable affair of modern melodic thrash with some killer hooks and riffs. Three years later and the bands third release sees fit to be dropped into my mail box as a very welcome surprise. Three years is a long time without any product and can cause momentum for the band to wane slightly as metal fans, as fickle as they are, seek out new fodder to shred their ears to.
The album begins with a gradual fade on “We Defy” with an Annihilator inspired riffing burst before descending into a more mid paced tempo of hard hitting thrash. The bands modernised approach enables the opener to claw for newer audiences already spoilt by a plethora of worldwide acts vying for positions to take your cash and grab your attention. Like the sophomore effort the band focuses their song writing by inserting formidable hooks and some adroit lead breaks. Bay Area thrash is blatantly obvious on “War Path” as the tune has that groove beat without hitting the gas too early for the sake of it. Again we are spoilt with some excellent lead work that sits amid the verses bellowed with gusto and even some harmonised sections bolstering an already variable album. However the strength of this release is marked by the lead work which has some top quality licks this side of an Arch Enemy release, which softens the bands thrashier side allowing all the songs to expand and especially with the harmonised lead work which I found extremely pleasant.
Maturity in song writing has enabled the band to become far more ambitious with the arrangements and most likely attributable to touring experiences over the last few years. “Another Day” is much heavier initially with a pummelling double kick creating a pervading undercarriage for the song before shifting the tempo down into a very good stop-start riffing style. The title track is the releases epic composition spanning nearly seven minutes it blends every aspect of the band into one skilfully written and executed track. Building sequentially the guitar gathers momentum with each passing second before shifting course for a new riff. Some of the hooks on this album favour classic heavy metal than thrash which adds so much depth to just straight heads down neck breaking savagery. As the riff change appears the tune ramps up the aggression and here I feel that the bass work is far too dominant in the mix, something I noticed earlier as well, it has a tendency to muffle the instrumentation a little, but is a minor point in the scheme of the release. The title track has some cracking riff breaks and crunching double bass to make the tune a lot heavier. “The Grind” is a groove metal monster preferring to hack at the listener with a slow punishing riff and beat. The closing song, “The Endless Light” is a standout for me as it has a different riff structure that borders the flamboyance of power metal and some galloping drums, it’s much heavier than power metal of course but the deft melody hints at that style.
This Canadian band probably flies very much under the radar of UK thrashers and possibly European thrashers too, but the band is forging ahead with superb song writing that melodic thrashers should completely adore.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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