Anterior - This Age of Silence

Here we go guys with my first album review on here, reviewed on the plane on my way to Rhodes, the time flew by!
The Welsh 5 piece’s debut offering brings only 9 tracks to the table, 2 of which are interludes. Following is a more precise track by track analysis and review, scroll down to the red writing for a short conclusion.

Intro track Ghosts of Dawn builds slowly with harmonising guitars and pounding drums, leading straight into The Silent Divide. The double pedal, riffing and scream are a little reminiscent of Ascendancy-era Trivium, or Poison-era BFMV. The lyrics never seem to be rushed, yet do not drone, a quality that is present throughout the whole album. The vocals are either spoken or screamed – yet the scream is easily decipherable, not unlike Anders Friden of In Flames-fame. The Silent Divide in particular has a haunting chorus, the likes of which rarely found without clean vocals.

Dead Divine gets off to a similar, yet different, start with the band’s Scandinavian influences showing through again with a very Arch Enemy sounding break in the song, using delayed guitar effects. This song also holds some brilliant solos.

Days of Deliverance is the shortest song so far (excluding the intro of course) clocking in at just over 4 minutes long. A simpler verse riff than the previous songs’ leads into a shorter chorus. Again this song has some good guitar work – particularly listen out for the sweeping solos.

Human Hive begins with the familiar ‘yaaargh’ scream and the use of natural harmonics introduces the song nicely. A slowed down section in this song lends itself more to some groove metal bands, and a gratuitously long instrumental break and solo lead back in for some final vocals.

The seamless transition into acoustic interlude Stir of Echoes shows an ambitious attempt. Strings and effective yet simple riffs make this a good break from the loudness, and a little fret-buzz picked up is the only indication of the band’s inexperience. The track shows real promise for a future full length instrumental one.

Scar City’s title may sound like a bad sci fi series but it’s actually another 6 minute tune from the most metal of boyos. A similar verse and chorus riff drive the song on, but for me it’s the drums building back in after a quieter break in the song that steal it here. I think the guy in seat 19E could tell I was trying hard not to nod my head along. However, with the similarity of verse and chorus riffs the song seems to stagnate a little and could possibly do with being shorter.

The darker sounding chords of Seraph begin another 6 ½ minute track with an accessible chorus with riffs neither being overly complex or too simple. Whispering vocals are present here, fading the song back from a break into the outro.

The title track, This Age of Silence, starts with some odd chords compared with the rest of the album and takes longer to find its feet as a song. A beatdown appears to be preferred to an epic solo in this song, yet the solo merely has to wait til a little later – being a little slower and understated compared to those that have come previously on the album.

Anterior seem to combine the sounds of Scandinavian metal with the accessibility of more commercial bands such as Trivium/BFMV. The album is produced well, and for a debut the content is a brilliant achievement. The band are brave not to succumb to putting in clean vocals for the sake of it, nor are there wall to wall beatdowns. Uncompromising and more traditional solos litter the album, but with the musicianship on display listening to them is a pleasure.

I’m not sure if I’m gonna give ratings for albums I review on here, but if I were to with this one, I’d say 8/10.

Dying Fetus @ White Rabbit, Plymouth

Here was a line-up to make those of you into some more extreme metal salivate at the prospect. Dying Fetus, US metal veterans, with 3 top quality up and coming British bands in support. The venue has a floorspace smaller than your hall would have been at school, and the stage is raised about 2 feet, and is easily accessible.

Burning Skies, a band I was made aware of through this gig, are a fantastically brutal Bristol outfit. Their latest offering 'Greed.Filth.Abuse.Corruption' is near the top of my list of British albums, but more comments on that are for another time. Their performance is tight, getting some movement out of the crowd in the early evening, and only an unreliable venue and promoter has stopped me going to see them a second time.

Next up were Trigger the Bloodshed, a band with a drummer so fast even those well experienced in truly fast metal would be shocked. He relentlessly batters his snare and toms and stamps at his double foot pedals like they've just called his mother fat for the entirety of their set. However, like the time I've seen them before, without a bassist currently they lack punch and their performance seems to follow Burning Skies' poorly. And this isn't through lack of effort, the vocalist actually runs to the toilet to be violently ill during their set.

Anterior are a band I had been eagerly anticipating seeing live after listening to their debut album (A review will be up soon). Having bumped into two of the guys in the toilets at the venue, recognising them only by their strong Welsh accents, I was interested to see how they'd perform live. A word I used to describe Burning Skies is also applicable here - tight. The band were clearly well polished, scarily so for one with only one release, with the vocals and impressive solos being hit nigh on perfectly. The price to pay for this was some frankly quite boring stage dynamics - for the audio they were producing just putting a foot up on the monitor didn't quite seem adequate.

Like when I saw Suffocation a few weeks earlier, Dying Fetus are a well established band with a vast array of songs at their disposal, and this experience shows through. Whereas tight is a good word to use for some (less experienced) bands, The Fetus showed they were simply in another league, even with a new drummer. A blind man would not have believed you had you told him there were only 3 members performing, such was the complexity of the bassline, aural thrashing from the drums and grinding riffs from the guitar. To top it all off, the vocals were good, although were sabotaged a little by the sound engineer's sub-standard mixing. I would love to say all of their set was brilliant, but I missed a song or two while spitting out the blood in my mouth from the pit. Good, violent fun, thankfully without the plague of hardcore dancing making even the slightest appearance - an overweight and underage girl threatened at times but was halted with all the subtlety of, let's say, New Zealand smashing into your face.