consistently brought one specific thing to the table that -- in the express opinion of this writer -- has been missing in metalcore for a long-while: a listenable manifestation of unchecked aggression. Yeah, there are “black shirt” bands out there that just play blast beats, or “girl-jean” bands that just chug the bottom three strings in common time… but they’re all one-trick ponies. Personally, I kind of miss their old PH-C/ what-the-hell-ever-you-call-it-core sound from 2012’s The Next Level, but I also like the direction they’ve gone here; it’s more… sinister, and this trademarked (not really) sound has proven to be sinister enough to share stages with the likes of Impending Doom and the now (unfortunately) defunct, A Plea For Purging.

 

It’s almost a cliche now, for a band to open an album with something other than music- maybe not so much “cliche” as much as it’s considered “filler.” I personally love opening tracks that do this, they're sort of like the candlelight to the romantic dinner (in the “industry” we call ‘em “mood setters”). WtR’s Invade did this with a War of the Worlds sounding progression of tones on top of a distorted bass drum; Every TAS album since 3750 has done this, and countless other bands have used this aesthetic to set a tone for their respective albums.

 

Track one on Times of War, “Pride Over Sanity,” opens with an excerpt from Harry Truman’s radio report on the Potsdam Conference (yay, historical relevance!), which fades into a chug-fest accented with pinch-harmonics. Forty seconds into this song, the main song riff kicks in, along with vocalist Bobby Stratton’s authoritative bark. Tangent: I was trying for like, two days, to go through my music library to figure out who he sounds like; The Plot In You’s Landon -- his lows at least -- is on whom I finally settled. What really stands out to me vocally is the simple fact I can actually understand him throughout all of his “barking” -- he’s like Geoff Ficco or Vincent (don’t call him Vince) Bennett in the way he can generate lows from the diaphragm while still maintaining a somewhat intelligible delivery.

 

Anyway, this song delves into group chants a la Despised Icon, pinch harmonics a la…whomever (it’s like three o’clock), and generally brutal song structure- but what’s surprising, is the the level of haunting ambiance during the last minute of the single (That’s just the example, but really the entire album is like this.). Again, I’m going to draw a comparison with Wormwood because this is strikingly reminiscent of “BTM FDR” and its ambiance. Don’t get me wrong- I'm not disparaging Beware the Neverending for “copying” TAS, I’m simply stating that the vibe here is similar: aggression and atmosphere; and it works.

 

The context on this album, typically centers around WW2, specifically revolving around the events of the Pacific theater... hell the album art is a mushroom cloud and a samurai. Just look at the track listing, and tell me these aren’t at least loosely related:

 

1. Pride Over Sanity

2. Times of War

3. Kamikaze

4. Iron Giants

5. Zero to Nothing

6. Repercussions of Destroying a Pearl

7. Angry Little Boy

8. Farewell Hiroshima

9. Black Rain

10. Our Arrogance

11. Consequences Become Graves

12. The Phoenix Cry

 

Or the lyrical content of “Iron Giants:” “Behold the pride of the rising sun/ All powerful and never faltering/ We stand like iron giants/ It’s us against the world/ Lets take it to the sky/ This time we take the fight to them.”

 

How fucking sick is that? That you can revamp something that happened seventy some-odd years ago and make it topical again? (The History Channel doesn’t even cover history, anymore). The whole album is chock-full of metaphors that obviously demand a high level of lyricism and imagination to maintain without overstaying their welcome. To digress, yeah I think their first album was better written, but as I said before, this is an album with more continuity. Look, as with Wormwood (or any TAS album after Continent) you play a song to hear brutality in the context of the song’s respective album, not song structure- and I think that’s what these guys are going for, too. This is one of those albums that you play when you just want to let some aggression out, like on your commute to work, or while grocery shopping…or while watching over your younger siblings.