In the tradition of other Facedown/Strikefirst releases, North Carolina’s Onwards to Olympas deliver solid Christian metalcore/ hardcore/ deathcore that straddles the line between burlier, heavier acts like label mates Earth From Above and slightly more melodic styled stuff like For Today and such.
Now most of you have left, I’ll continue…
There’s nothing to earth shattering on this band’s debut, and it delivers all the current scene trends, but the band do have a tangible reference to older He Is Legend in some of their balanced metal assaults. The clean vocals are acceptable, and there is less of a poppy commercial feel like fellow North Carolina act A Hero A Fake.
With a Jamie King (Between the Buried and Me, For Today) production the album is clean and heavy allowing the mix of lurching deathcore and cleaner metalcore to meld seamlessly as the band transitions between hefty breakdowns and death metal growls to uplifting, soaring clean choruses and to their credit the band does not go for the forced choopy, noodly, techy arpeggio filled stuff, rather they let the songs breathe and have some memorable hooks and moments here and there. I actually ended up rather enjoying the likes of opener “Unstoppable”, the bluesy Southern groove of “Don’t Cry to Me”, dramatic climax of “Awake in a Dream” catchy “Presence at the Funeral”, and sing along chorus and excellent (though too short) somber female vocals in the closing title track.
Not an utterly required listen but certain on par with the likes of Hereafter an Odyssey and A Thousand Times Repent as far as well-done Christian metal that’s covers all bases between heavy and melodic.
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You’re probably the only reviewer that likes metalcore/deathcore who I can still respect, Erik. Backhanded compliment? Kind of. :P
on Feb 23rd, 2010 at 17:52The most interesting thing to me about these reviews, I suppose Christian ones just as much, is how every review contains a seemingly completely new list of bands used as references. Each time you make note of 4 or 5 fellow acts but yet I rarely see the same names ever mentioned more than perhaps twice. Makes me wonder just how high the turnover rate is for these acts! Does this corner of the music world necessitate a complete changing of the guard every six months or so?
on Mar 18th, 2010 at 10:04Vugelnox, be glad we don’t review r’n’b and generic shake your ass pop music… yet ;)
Anyway, was brushing off my temporary insomnia by watching the local music channel and goddamn if it wasn’t full of artists no one will remember tomorrow. But what they have going for them, and what metal/deathcore lacks, is the whole “featuring”-thing, where they’ll introduce the new ‘talent’ by putting them first on some established artist’s single. Then later on, when the band releases their own new album, they get a few big name visitors in return for that…
Oh wait. They’re already doing it by producing each other’s albums…
on Mar 18th, 2010 at 11:00