Ares

Salt the Wound is one of those bands that are less talked about in the grand scheme of things, but they make pretty damn solid deathcore music. They also didn't overstay their welcome and just up-and-left the scene after just three albums, one odd fan of them would think they left too soon (so did I at some point), but they took a queue from OG bands All Shall Perish and Suffokate, left while they were at their peak. God, how I wish bands like And Hell Followed With and As Blood Runs Black learnt that same lesson (insert rolling eye emoji), knowing the utter trite they'd decide to produce in later years. Because of course, there's only soooo much you can do with melodic deathcore before shit runs its course. But for what it's worth, 2009 to 2011 was the fun years of Deathcore for me, all those bands I mentioned earlier had at least something I liked, now onto the album.

Ares, the second album, named after some Spartan/Greek god I assume. Don't get the idea of just naming the album that, it's clearly not a concept album, there's not even a title track to explain the context. Lyrically and visually, this doesn't really conjure up the vibe of a Greek soldier or anything, so I really don't get the name choice. Focusing on the lyrics, I get that the first song is some zombie apocalypse bullshit, but the rest just feels like pseudo-poetic ramblings. Like it doesn't what it wants to be, are you writing violent and hateful death metal lyrics or are you writing cynical and socio-political hardcore lyrics? I REALLY CAN'T TELL!!!!!

The first three tracks have a few melodic hardcore/pop punk sub-sections at the beginning or end, it felt a bit jarring to be honest, but at least there was an attempt. From My Hands is the obvious banger track from that portion, the first blast-beat on that song sounded very like Decide like, with the double bass drumming on top of the off-beat snare hits, I'm a sucker for that to be fair. Also, the final riff of that sounds like a slower version of To the Top in their final album Kill the Crown, it's low-key catchy, even if it's happy sounding riff. It sounded like they wanted a "soaring conclusion", it's a part that I could happily do without, but I occasionally just hum it out unexpectedly, so . . . there you go.

The mid-section of the album wasn't all that memorable to be honest, Jafar and Hail the Locusts got replay value for days, nothing more needs to be said there (actually, I'll gush a bit about Jafar for a few more lines, that part where they just blast in a trve-kvlt/thrashcore style with a pulverising dissonant guitar riff in the background, and the pre-breakdown chant after, FUCKING DELICIOUS!!!!). Take A Bow sounded like the producers just listened to the last two tracks off Whitechapel's This is Exile and we're like "Hold my beer", at times it feels like a chopped and screwed version of the second track, other times it's an experimental mess of electro-industrial noise effects on top of an annoying breakdown, I wouldn't surprised if they were to play this part live, the guitarists' necks, arms and legs would be crying in agony from how much synchronized headbanging and jumping they'd have to do. And Yes, the Breakdowns are shit on this album, as much as I appreciate the death metal influence here, doesn't mean the breakdown have to suck. Surgery of Impalement by Suffocation, Daimonos by Behemoth and every slamming groove by Dying Fetus are obvious examples of this.

Despite my gripes, I enjoy popping in this album for a listen on occasion and every instrument is audible and well played, even the bass guitar has somewhat of a running pulse (with the right pair of headphones). The drums have a nice sound to it, the bass drops are used rather sparingly compared to the other modern Deathcore bands and to me at least, the vocals aren't as grating as I was told they would be, he can at least put some feeling to the songs. The Guitars are So Fucking Bland, OH MY GOD! But that aside, as much as I enjoy Kill the Crown and just melodic deathcore in general, Salt the Wound proves in this album, that the chaotic energy from pure death metal, the feeling that the music itself is telling a story from beginning to end. In Ares, it suits them well. HATE THE NAME THOUGH, THANKS!