Black Anvil — Hail Death
The album begins with one of the year’s best tracks, “Still Reborn.” The song opens up with gentle, albeit foreboding guitars before breaking into some classic thrash riffs with dissonant tremolo melodies lurking underneath accompanied by frantic bass work and punishing, driving drums. Paul Delaney’s black rasps come in and then the song breaks into a brilliant, Dissection-like riff that brings the song to another level entirely. And the two part solo broken by the shout “Two-three-four!” is just incredibly powerful stuff.
“Redemption Through Blood” acts as a slower, heavier break from the ripping “Still Reborn” and is the first song to feature gangshouted vocals. These vocals are where a lot of the album’s hardcore leanings come from. It was jarring at first, hearing these shouts in a black metal album, but they do serve to enhance the band’s grounded in reality, down to earth atmosphere. It’s a cool track, but hot off the heels of “Still Reborn” makes the song drag in places. The song leads into “Eventide,” the album’s preview song. It’s a punchy, aggressive number that grabs your attention within the first minute with a catchy, tremolo riff that transforms into a spiraling, dissonant one at the end.
The rest of the album’s songs are all somewhere between slow and mid-paced, and never come close to the heights reached by the album’s first three tracks. “Seven Stars Unseen,” “G.N.O.N.,” “My Hate is Pure,” “N,” and “Next Level Black” are all straightforward tracks with few surprises. By now the combination of clean and harsh vocals, which was great on the album opener, are flat out annoying. There are moments of quality interspersed, but the solos and handfuls of cools riffs don’t manage to get the album out of the rut it falls into with “Seven Stars Unseen.” There’s nothing wrong with straightforward, slower songs, but at the same time, meh. “Until the End” is the only track on the second half of the album that stands out. It’s a slower track, but unlike the other slow songs, there’s a pervading sense of melancholy from the riffs.
The album ends with a cover of Kiss’s “Under the Rose.” It’s a huge improvement over the original song, but the slower, lighter tone of the song feels a little out of place. Still, I really enjoy the cover, and think that it’s one of the best songs on the album.
Hail Death is a really tight album musically, and the production is awesome. The booming, full drums sound particularly good, and the guitar tone is great. The real issue I have with the album is that it peaks on its first song. An album needs a strong opening track, but Hail Death goes too far and the rest of the album is downhill. Overall, I enjoyed the album, but most of my enjoyment comes from just three songs. The rest of the album drags on without a real sense of urgency, and by the fifth song, I just wanted the thing to be over. The few good songs are excellent, but they don’t make the album a must buy. I recommend listening to the whole album before purchasing, because just listening to “Still Reborn” or “Eventide” will give you unreasonably high expectations for the rest of the album.