A New Dawn in the Age of War

I randomly found out about Divine Chaos some years ago when I was looking up who Vader's new drummer was on "Tibi et Igni". Obviously, nowadays everyone knows James Stewart and recognises him as a beast, but at the time, he was a relatively unknown quantity and coming seemingly from nowhere.

So I found that James' band at the time was Divine Chaos, and decided to check out their record "A New Dawn in the Age of War", which had just come out. Boy am I glad that I did that - still listening to it to this day. This is an absolute banger of a thrash metal record! Riffs for days, great songwriting with fast and technical tracks, really tight musicianship, cool lyrics and production which is clear, but gritty at the same time.

In terms of the songs themselves, it's all fucking killer. Some highlights: The album kicks off with "Last Confession", which gives you an idea of what's to come. Fast, technical, direct, with the occasional catchy chorus you can sing along to while headbanging, and some interesting time signatures on occasion to spice things up. "The Myth", which is probably my favourite on the record, starts with an epic arpeggiated sequence and has an absolutely ripping solo (I can't recommend it enough honestly, it's Ride the Lightning good). "Ignorance Everlasting" has an insanely catchy chorus, and the lyrics are as legit as it gets when it comes to thrash. "Fields of the Fallen" is super anthemic and just makes you wanna headbang. "Perpetual War Policy" brings you more riffs and amazing leads, with an atmospheric acoustic interlude in the middle, before returning back to brutality to close the show with style.

Honestly, there's no filler on this album (with the exception of the segue "Sinain Sands", which I don't really count as a proper track. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty neat, but ultimately, I wouldn't notice if it wasn't there).

The musicianship is top notch. Chris O'Toole and Matt Gilmour may not be famous, but they absolutely are really great guitarists. The riffing is awesome, you get your chugging, palm muting, tremolo, gallops, etc.. you find me a thrash staple and it's going to be in there, in an interesting and catchy form, and played to perfection. The solos (as far as I know, mostly courtesy of Chris, who's the main lead player) are superb and while fast and shreddy a lot of the time, they really shine through with musicality, taste and structure.

James Stewart drums his ass off on this album, and it really shows you why he's good enough to be in Vader. Relentless aggression, clockwork precision, awesome feet with cool kick patterns, really neat fills. Compared to his work in Vader, this record isn't really about blastbeats, but that's perfectly fine considering the genre.

In terms of the bass, Dave Bennett does a good job. Like many metal records, the bass is here to support the rest of the band and doesn't do too many groundbreaking things - it's played well, mixed well and beefs up the sound like it's supposed to.

The vocals (and possibly the lyrics also), courtesy of Ben Friston, are awesome. His vocal style is sort of like Mille from Kreator - at the intersection of thrash and death metal. Very raspy and distorted, yet not really guttural and quite intelligible. The lyrics are very competently written, intelligently dealing with serious topics such as war, politics and religion. It may be a thrash cliche, but I'm happy to eat it up any day of the week, and seriously, it's quality poetry.

Overall, I'd say "A New Dawn in the Age of War" easily competes with any new thrash release from the more known bands. Since I first heard this years ago, this has held up extremely well, and honestly I prefer it to records like Havok's "Unnatural Selection" or Exodus' "Blood in Blood Out" (both of which I really like) for example. Does Divine Chaos reinvent the genre with this record? Not really, but in a way, that's what i'm looking for in a thrash release. They spice things up sometimes with the occasional proggy moment, but it only serves to accentuate the balls to the wall headbanging quality of the songs.

So yeah, listen to this record if you ever get the chance, it's brilliant and a hidden gem that deserves to be discovered by more people.