Onward to Olympas are back yet again with another dose of Christian metalcore on their second album for Facedown Records, The War Within Us. Adding much more melody and an onslaught of solos, one can tell the band has stepped their game up…big time!
“The Continuance” is a short filler intro before the first tune kicks in. “The War Within Us” opens with a tasty breakdown, which then leads willingly into speed metal riffage. Eventually the chorus kicks in with cleanly sung vocals and screams overlapping the singing. Usually with most metalcore bands the clean vocals seem to ruin the music, but here they brighten up the sound and it gives the band a more epic and grandiose tone. The next track “The Revealing” ups the ante in the guitar department and showers the listener with an epic array of thrash metal riffs. Also the cleanly sung chorus for this song is an album highlight; it’s very catchy.
The next three tracks on the album are where the band shines the most in their metalcore delivery. “Hidden Eyes” has this twisting melodic riff around the minute mark, and the solos that are presented to us in “Seeker” and “Structures” are jaw dropping.
“Unsuitable Patterns” is an alright song but acts more as filler before “The March” kicks in. More of a short slow number that is carried out with emotional instrumentation, and finely sung vocals. “The March” transitions into “The Accuser,” which is another semi-filler track. It does however contain a few decent riffs.
The second last song “From The Mouth” is the heaviest track on the album. A breakdown opens the tune and it’s delightfully nasty. Thrash riffs, gang vocals, and another breakdown (1:30, had me head banging like crazy) Onward to Olympas tears it apart.
Album closer “Rebuilt” carries on with the attitude from the last track and spices things up with a more direct yet emotionally intense ride. The heaviness carries on until two minutes in where a southern guitar melody arises; eventually quietly sung vocals get louder while a solo hides underneath the music that pieces itself together.
A few filler tracks and a corny intro are the only things that irked me about this release. Other then that the album is pure gold just like everything Facedown Records (and Strikefirst) releases except for The Great Commission…they just plain suck.
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done.goodbye site.cannot support pro-christian media entities.i hope you get the same end digital metal met with.
on May 30th, 2011 at 22:10Thank God.
on May 31st, 2011 at 08:19LOL… Amen.
on May 31st, 2011 at 10:05Haha, goodbye shaden. Let’s see if he actually stops posting here then. Anyway this review is pretty spot on, this album is basic metalcore but done very well. Kind of like For the Fallen Dreams with more variety and better everything. This band is really good at the clean chorus thing as well.
on May 31st, 2011 at 10:50As a side note I always find it funny that a few retarded people complain about this site giving good reviews to christian bands. And yet, on the very same site are many positive reviews for blatantly satanic bands. Doesn’t that kind of make up for it? Lol
on May 31st, 2011 at 10:52Who gives a shit what they’re singing about if the music and vocals are good/excellent? Wishing the demise of an entire site just because they sometimes cover Christian bands is not only childish but completely asinine. Have a good one, ya prick.
on May 31st, 2011 at 12:02later shaden lol
on May 31st, 2011 at 14:31no christian bands make good music, tho. Shaden’s a goof, but he’s right about that.
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 01:36@Nick: Trouble, Paramaecium, Place Of Skulls, Rob Rock, Saviour Machine, Extol, Tourniquet, Antestor, Jacob’s Dream, Narnia, Kekal, King’s X (Doug has problems with religion now, but they used to be Christian), Virgin Black (same story as Doug), etc. You were saying? :P
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 08:45A few other good ones are Lo-Ruhamah, Schaliach, Sympathy, A Hill To Die Upon, and Crimson Moonlight. Even Black Sabbath had some Christian lyrics.
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 09:20man, don’t play the Sabbath card, they weren’t christian. Extol are awful, and a lot of the bands you’re naming here had like, one christian dude, and so they got named christian bands. Lo Ruhamah, if I’m thinking of the right band, told us straight here that they weren’t a christian band.
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 10:33https://www.teethofthedivine.com/site/featured/interview-with-lo-ruhamah/ yeah, here.
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 10:35and Facedown Records is a plague. that kind of “hardcore” that they usually deal in is just abysmal.
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 10:36I like a lot of facedown bands and so do many other people. Perhaps your opinion differs from the opinions of others? Impossible!
on Jun 2nd, 2011 at 11:23I guess I’m in the minority, evidently, in refusing to listen to christian metal and hardcore. rock and roll is the devil’s music. straight.
on Jun 3rd, 2011 at 10:33^ You’re just as up tight about Christian lyrics in metal as the most conservative Christians are about satanic lyrics. :lol: Try not to take your ideals so seriously.
on Jun 3rd, 2011 at 13:30my values are beer and headbanging and Star Wars. much more fun than Jesus and behaving nice.
on Jun 3rd, 2011 at 14:51@Nick Ever tried being open to something new instead of living in your cramped little world devoid of pleasure?
on Jun 6th, 2011 at 09:57no, never.
on Jun 8th, 2011 at 00:25Good man…
on Jun 8th, 2011 at 09:25it’s just, you know, when I got into metal and hardcore and punk, they were largely safe from Jesus freaks. I mean, you had like, Stryper and Zao and MXPX, but that was mostly it. but now there’s so much of this crap it’s like a youth group. I’m just not in any way interested in their preachy, right-wing nonsense. get it the fuck away from my party, you know?
on Jun 8th, 2011 at 10:24Speaking of Christian bands, I miss old Extol. Burial and Undeceived were overlong but had some great material. I may check this band out, don’t care what they sing about as long as it’s not too in your face.
on Jun 12th, 2011 at 14:46