Warriors of God no less
At the risk of being a smartarse I’d just like to say that Iconoclast means a destroyer of idols and religious images. It seems the band thinks this would make a good album about warriors sent to kill the murderers of god (everyone) and they’d be dead right.
Whatever and whoever it’s about there’s no escaping the sheer power and brutality of this release, from the end of a nice piano intro it just rips into your ears like an extreme metal pit bull that’s mistaken them for pork chops. This would get old pretty fast if it were all scathing hate and no substance; luckily there’s lots of technical shenanigans going on coupled with some buried melodies that are all the better for being discovered.
Production wise this one has it right, not so technically crisp that it’s too cleaned up and sterile but not so grimy that it loses the quality it needs and deserves, fast yet heavy with death metal vocals that keep it rooted in serious metal land, it’s not going to win instant appeal with the casual listener but if you’re inclined towards the extreme end of the metal spectrum give this one a play.
My promo cd doesn’t have any fancy packaging but the press release did point me in the direction of the full story of Iconoclast available on the cd enhancement (?), well when it says full story there’s a very nice macromedia section giving background to some of the songs whilst setting the scene. It works very well and is something bands should do more of, if nothing else it shows that they thought about what they were doing and didn’t just write a load of songs and wrap them in a story for a laugh.
Some of the tracks have an epic feel to them ‘A dying ember’ is a case in point, at just under seven minutes it’s not the longest song in the world but it does have gravitas and further supports the feeling of quality, again this isn’t going to convert the Whitesnake fans but it does lift this above the shoulders of its peers who are either playing death metal or hardcore. This takes something from both genre’s but adds something a little Swedish into the mix even though they’re German, when they get up a full head of steam little bits of Gothenburg pops its head up.
Albums out 28th January go get it
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