I Declare War

I Declare War is one of those longlost deathcore bands that stayed underground until finally gaining their recognition with their 2010 album Malevolence. Now, don't get me wrong, this band I think is great and meaty but for years upon years I believe that part of them not being as popular as brother deathcore acts such as Chelsea Grin, Whitechapel or Carnifex is mainly because they were, for so long, unable to really appeal to the right audience or sound how they want to. Personally, I've known of this band since 2009 and even then I just thought their music was only decent. But ever since ditching their previous vocalist (Jonathan Huber) and finding a frontman who suits the band MUCH better than their previous singer ever could, I can only wonder… how much more popular would this band be like if they found Jamie Hanks years ago?

So on this LP, the band really show off more of a "tough guy, I'm back in town" kind of attitude and not to mention, a groundbreakingly heavy and innovative sound that they never played before. The album's opening track "I, Tormentor" come in with a barrage of IDW's renown trademark style of riffing coupled with blast beats and Hanks' distinctive growling style. It almost occurs by this song's second or so VERY catchy breakdown is that they've gotten much more comfortable with their songwriting and what they want to sound like. However, things don't truly get good until "Misery Cloud". The album's second track starts off the clearly intelligible growling of the sentence "THEY CAME, THEY FUCKING CONQUERED" (obviously placed in the song all for the sake of the song's hype while being played live) and while most of this track puts in about 70% more chugging than the first track did, it's memorable, fun, brutal and catchy as fuck.

Speaking of chugging, you'll unfortunately hear that a bit more on this release than I Declare War's past albums, but at least it's done in a good cause if you make believe you're listening to Meshuggah or other extreme metal bands that aren't afraid to wail on the strings every now and then. The guitarwork definitely isn't all that bad, there's even a guitar solo in "Pillow Talk". As for bass guitar, the album is thankfully mastered in a way that you can hear that if you keep an ear out for it. I also have to give kudos to the producer that it's not overly mastered and irritatingly loud as it was on Malevolence.

Drumming is your typical metal drumming, he pulls off some excellent double bass kicks and never overuses blast beats. When you're in an extreme metal band like I Declare War, I could imagine you'd be looking for variety in playing your instrument from album to album so he'll put in a fill every now and then but nothing that will catch your ear so much as while you're hearing Hanks growling away over roaring guitars.

Overall, this is definitely I Declare War's best record and is probably an absolute blast to hear them play songs from it live. I would definitely recommend picking this record up.