punkrawka's Full Review: The Triptych by Demon Hunter
Demon Hunter earned themselves a few raised eyebrows with Summer of Darkness, a well-produced heavy metal disc laden with guest appearances and some punch-you-in-the-gut instrumentals. Coming out of the Christian/indie market, the band earned some secular underground credibility and built up a decent buzz for their junior release, The Triptych. Sadly, the band pretty much blows those expectations with this album, which is less than its predecessor in production, songwriting skill and intensity alike.
The opening strikes a hopeful note, with operatic female vocals in "The Flame That Guides Us Home" that could easily be used as the soundtrack to a medieval war film. This gives way to "Not I," a hard-hitting opening track that seems to pick up where the previous album left off. There's an odd moment where the instrumentals cut out and vocalist Ryan Clark's roars seem to fade to croaks, but most of the track is hard-hitting and instrumentally unified, with determined lyrics to boot.
There's other good news, too, as "Fire To My Soul" presents some sharp songwriting, highlighting bone-crushing metal and sensitive melodies without sounding contrived at either extreme. And a cover of Prong's "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" sounds as though Demon Hunter should've been playing it all along -- it's just a perfect fit, executed with a signature touch.
Unfortunately, the reasons to get excited about this album basically end with those three songs. The rest of the disc ranges from decent (but not noteworthy) to forced and boring. There are moments, like the pummelling percussion in the choruses of "The Science of Lies," that grab the listener with a once-customary force, but as whole tracks, there's a lot of noise without substance. In the lot of the mediocre fall loud and less-interesting tracks like "Ribcage" and "The Soldier's Song."
The category of watered-down and altogether unimpressive songs, sadly, holds a longer roster. An unfortunate triple play occurs as the album opens, with "Undying," "Relentless Intolerance" and "Deteriorate" all getting bogged down in needlessly long and uninteresting melodic sections. These songs (and later, "One Thousand Apologies" in the same vein) are hurt even further by this album's diminished production qualities; a better mixing job might have given the slower tunes a bit more punch.
But production aside, The Triptych is obviously an album into which less effort was invested than its predecessor. Summer of Darkness's key values -- strong production, no-holds-barred volume and above-average songwriting -- all picked that album up when it threatened to falter, and they're all diminished or absent on The Triptych. As such, general metal fans can easily give this effort a pass, and even diehard Demon Hunter fans will find it to be a noticeable step down for the band.
The third release from Demon Hunter, appropriately entitled The Triptych, picks up where their previous two bestsellers left off- with a serious dose ...More at Christianbook.com
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