A plentiful of guitars. A truckload of guitars. A copious load of guitars. Bottomline, an album to any Metal fan be proud of the guitars. Each intervention, each guitar solo, each riff is an opportunity to learn how to write guitars to a Metal album. It’s not only the overtones that are right, but also the effects chosen to embellish each part of the songs. The right amount of melody, the right amount of agression. Both are well-balanced here. I mean it, the guitars here in “The Way of All Flesh Is Decay” are as if they were made by an artisan that crafted carefully all the details in order to build an album to impress. Yes, because the sound in “The Way of All Flesh Is Decay” is really impressive.
“The Way of All Flesh Is Decay” is an album that can be labeled as Modern Heavy Metal – I really don’t if this fits, but it’s the truth. It’s not the so-called Alt Metal or the likes. It’s a new grip to the good old Old School Heavy Metal. End Reign were able to get a totally new approach to the old features of our beloved Old School Heavy Metal. Which means a lot, my dear child of the night. In fact, from where I’m standing, the guitars are really the thing that made a lot of difference in the album. Because of them the band’s approach sounds much more modern with an angrier than average vocals near the gutural, but not it. “Chasing Divinity” tells this tale much better than I do. Pay attention to the Extreme Metal vocal techniques Mike Score uses. The frentic rhythm of “When Death Comes Crawling” attracts a lot as well. I just love the kind of drumming Adam Jarvis does here using the good old one bass drumming technique plus the fast snare drum. It’s hypnotic. Now pay close attention how the guitar intervene. Pay attention how the rhythm guitars adapt to the solo or the opposite. That’s what I’m telling about. It’s an organic system functioning here. There is also the magnificent grand finale with “The Night Creeps Upon Me” which commences with an insane guitar solo to burn the house down.
“The Way of All Flesh Is Decay” is really impressive. It’s an album to any metalhead to be proud of. One more to be nominated.
End Reign “The Way of All Flesh Is Decay” was released on July 14th via Relapse Records.
Track Listing:
- Desolate Fog
- Chaos Masked As Order
- The Hunger
- Divine Abysmal End
- Serpent Messiah
- House of Thieves
- Giving Life to Tragedy
- Chasing Divinity
- When Death Comes Crawling
- The Night Creeps Upon Me
Watch “Desolate Fog” official music video here:
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