Ares

If you bring up Ares in-discussion with various Salt the Wound fans, you'll quickly find that it is definitely the group's most loathed album, and universally despised by some of the band's biggest lovers which is something that I never quite understood. Yes it is the band's only outing without vocalist Kevin Schaefer, and yes the whole thing does sound fairly different from a musical stance compared to the other releases, but isn't it a bit harsh to trash on it so heavily despite these reasons? I still remember being a fan of Salt the Wound and eagerly awaiting this album's arrival in the midst of of being addicted to the Carnal Repercussions album and craving a follow-up. When this record finally dropped, I can say I was satisfied, not sure about everyone else though.

When inspecting Salt the Wound's melodic deathcore trilogy, Ares appears to come out as the most heavy, diverse and overall just meaner of the three records. I couldn't hate this album if I wanted to. The dual-guitar performance headed by Jake Scott and Vince Stropki is less of a straight The Black Dahlia Murder ripoff this time, and even feels more original compared to Carnal Repercussions. You know that theory that good things can potentially come from projects made within time restraints? I think this album is the direct result of such a phenomenon. To best-explain what I mean, lets take a look at The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, indeed a fantastic game, but it is generally agreed the game is strange and dark for a Zelda title, same can be said for this album. Ares is ferocious and not in the way other Salt the Wound albums are, I feel like the little-time the band had when making this record coupled with the unfortunate outcome of cycling through members due to the young bandmates experiencing grown up issues like jobs or being married with children and facing the fact that they had to wade through two different vocalists before settling the one on this recording more or less had the group see themselves in a awkward and frustrating position, which ultimately resulted in some of the best deathcore to emerge in 2009.

Mat Wessoly's vocals do not resemble Schaefer in any form, you can instantly tell it's a different dude than who was doing on vocals on the debut, and that's what I like about this album. I can't even really explain how his screams sound, it's like a tortured shriek of anguish and it instantly comes across as a different vocal sound compared to most deathcore you've heard. While he doesn't seem to be capable at performing the throat-shredding bree bree pig squeals that Schaefer is, he makes up for it with a fantastic array of screams, mids and okay-ish growls. I've heard some people give a raised eyebrow to the vocals on this album, but I feel like the vocals here are more or less a precursor to some more experimental vocal stylizing that deathcore would later incorporate (i.e. Alex Koehler on the My Damnation album). Lyrics seem to fit with Wessoly's vocals really well, opening track "Mutations" seems to be a first-person narrative of a zombie outbreak, while the other tracks are serious vengeful/hateful anthems of personal problems which is a stark contrast to Kevin Schaefer's humor and sarcastic lyrics.

I've mentioned before that I deem Ares to be the heaviest album out of Salt's catalog, and I stand by that. While guitar melodies aren't completely abolished, I think of this record to be more influenced by just standard death metal rather than melodeath when put in comparison to their other works. Despite that, the melodic licks are still definitely present ("Foot of the Thrown" is the best example of such) but they are few and far in between, leaving the borderline metalcore-feel of early melodic deathcore gone. I feel like here is where I should also mention that this album has some of the sickest breakdowns you'll ever hear. "From my Hands" and "When People Are Shameless" are as MySpace as it gets when it comes to deathcore breakdowns, coming as a close tie with at-the-time Suicide Silence when pitting this band within a contest of who perfected the artform of the breakdown better.

Oh and by the way, I didn't even talk about the two best songs on the album yet. Track 2, "From My Hands" is a beautifully crafted work that begins with a build up, a chug-breakdown and then the songs enters some of the best riffs this band has ever written, a 2-step-esque part is worked in there as well proving the band still has their hardcore-ish elements intact. The other magnificent song that this album contains is titled "Jafar" and good fucking lord is this track a beast. I believe this song was the first track the band leaked to promote the album back in the day, it blew me away back then and still does. So much emotion particularly anger and hostility is displayed in this song across all five band members, also that "DESTROY THE WORLD" breakdown is the most memorable moment you'll get here.

My only complaint when it comes to Ares isn't that big of an issue, but it isn't definitely weird and it needs to be addressed. In an effort to keep the album from being a 7-song/24-minute EP, the band members brainstormed the idea to have one huge final filler song and it's ehhh... strange. Final track "Take a Bow" is an otherwise painfully average song that technically ends at about the 3-min mark, but on this album it's stretched past 16 minutes long. No they didn't just add 13 minutes of bullshit (more like there's only 5 minutes of it), but how it's executed is just odd. When the song ends at 3 minutes, this weird sample starts playing of, um, I don't even know what it is, just eerie sound effects, which lasts around 3 minutes, then what is heard next is the band performing a breakdown followed by a sample of radio static and then finally a recording of the band performing a medley of their own material, which starts with what sounds like to be a slower version of "Foot of the Thrown"... Yeah uh, it's odd. The group essentially find ways to cycle through samples and portions of songs to fill out the 16 minutes with this track, but I guess they did what they could under the rushed-time circumstances in order to make sure this record remained long enough to be deemed a full-length.

Shortly after the release of this album the band would announce their breakup, and would play a final tour in 2010. When the band reformed in 2011, I do recall seeing an image of Jake and Kevin standing next to each other burning what appears to be a copy of this album in their hands; which I guess signifies that even the members themselves were unsatisfied with Ares, or they were just doing it for promotional material knowing full well what their fans reactions to it were. But still... I just don't see what the big deal is; why the hate? I could even go on as far as saying that Ares is my favorite album they have, and that isn't hyperbole. With so many absolutely badass songs and memorable moments coupled with a infectious vocal performance that isn't delivered by Kevin Schaefer, I couldn't not hate this record. It's way too fucking good.

Best songs: "Jafar" and "From My Hands"