Chariots Of The Gods

Tides Of War

Written by: PP on 18/03/2013 22:45:51

'If it ain't broken, don't fix it' seems to be the philosophy of Ottawa, Canada based Chariots Of The Gods, whose debut album "Tides Of War" is perfectly content at faithfully replicating prototypical early 2000s metalcore releases as closely as possible. Think bands like As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, Trivium and others from the old guard within metalcore. Think rough, but crisp vocal work, no-nonsense melodic riffs, and a good flow to the song structures such that excessive usage of breakdowns as bridge passages is avoided as much as possible. Oh, and you can pretty much forget about clean vocals, too.

You could therefore argue that "Tides Of War" takes a retrospective approach to the genre that has fallen out of critics' favour in the past few years. Oftentimes this results into a dated sound - as is the case with any recent Shadows Fall release, for instance - but precisely because of their no bullshit approach to writing straight up metalcore why it is not the case here. Their vocalist sounds like Tim Lambesis (As I Lay Dying) for the most part, and the fretwork draws parallels particularly to All That Remains, so you can also argue that they've picked their influences right and are combining them in the best possible way. Songs like "Revillusion (1905)", the title track "Tides Of War", and "Seventh Weapon" are all admittedly standard fare metalcore tracks, but because of enough sweet licks and solid, albeit somewhat unvaried screams, they come across as standing strong even as metalcore as a style is struggling to stay above water in 2013.

And herein lies part of the problem with "Tides Of War". While competently played, well-produced, and even well-written, it's still essentially a release you've heard many times before. That doesn't make it a bad release by any means, just one that won't capture your imagination as a listener as vividly as "The Oncoming Storm", "The Art Of Balance", or "Frail Words Collapse" did back in the day. Go for this release if you still need your weekly new fix of metalcore in your musical diet, you won't find the genre played much better by new bands than this.

7

Download: Revillusion (1905), Seventh Weapon, Tides Of War
For the fans of: Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, All That Remains
Listen: Facebook

Release date 29.01.2013
Self-Released

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