Very much an album of two halves here from this Texan quintet. On the one hand we have 5 songs including an instrumental closer and on the other a set of four covers. The reason why they chose the second option is unknown, there have been two albums prior to this and my guess is that they simply didn’t have enough material for another full one quite yet and decided to pad it out to up the running time.

Essentially what we have here is melodic death metal with blackened vocal rasps. The powerful drumming and snarls combine to deliver a chunky sound on opener ‘Only I’ and the song has a good rolling groove that gets well into your head. Some lower toned growls add definition to the vocals and the repeated song title is rammed right into your head giving it a powerful memorability. Add in a guitar solo, shake about a bit and you’ve got a decent opening song. Chunky riffs and a bit of an At The Gates styled melody see single ‘The Hooded One’ coursing out the trap but its not all speed and decimation as some distinct black metal nuances add atmosphere over some slower moments. It bounces you all over the place and the dogged and full-throated irascible vocals follow every step of the way. Slow-burning and somewhat a soliloquy to the night ‘In Darkness Alone’ tinctured with some cool piano work via keyboard is probably my favourite here. Moving between bouts of speed and crepuscular and creepy neo-classicism this has a cadaverous corpse-painted shroud to it which reeks of grave dirt and certainly impresses. There’s quite an array of individualism about these original numbers, ‘Memory Unknown’ taking a bit of an atmospheric doom path with plenty of crushing depth about its 7-minute running time.

I would have preferred hearing more rather than covers which are only really going to appeal to those who like the original bands, no matter how you look at it. At least we are half good here. Behemoth’s ‘Chant For Eskaton’ is instantly recognisable and the band do a good job of putting their own scar on things as they whip up a devilish dervish. It’s also a case of thinking a bit outside the box and giving Swedes Dimension Zero a trip down memory lane. A good thrashy rendition of ‘Silent Night Fever’ from way back in 2002 goes down well with me and reminds me to dig out some of their old stuff for a dust off. Personally, I have no interest in Amon Amarth and bloody Metallica who get far too much exposure as it is. Choosing a song off the Black Album too seems pointless but at least ‘The God That Failed’ doesn’t suffer from the croons of the original the one time I listened to it. Naturally the rest of the tracks got far more than the once over and ultimately hit the mark.

(7/10 Pete Woods)

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