Holy War

What a hell of an album! Prior to this, Thy Art is Murder was a band that I found good, but not great, with The Adversary being an exception that I hold to a higher regard. When I heard that Holy War was announced, even though I wasn't the world's biggest fan of these guys, I was still moderately excited, since I still liked them. But when I heard the single "Light Bearer," my excitement raised TREMENDOUSLY. I loved that song and found it better than anything off of Hate (my opinion on Hate has raised since the first time I heard this album. While I like Hate more than I used to, I still think Light Bearer alone is better than a good amount of the tracks on that album). Now that I heard the whole thing, Thy Art is Murder brutally raped me with this album. I was actually wanting this album to be The Adversary Part 2. Did I get what I wanted? Well, no, but I still love this album and it did more than just satisfy.

Out of all the sound changes Thy Art is Murder went through, this one is not very drastic. If anything, the style is similar to Hate. But I personally believe that with this album, they improved on the formula they used on Hate for the most part. The darker atmosphere is still here, but I find it more effective this time around. Hate was already a ridiculously heavy album, but they managed to increase the heaviness here. There is still some groove on here, but it's lesser in this case. The instrumentation is more technical than it is on Hate and while it isn't exactly as technical as The Adversary, it's up there and still pretty damn impressive. The riffing and stuff is normally fast or mid-paced, but there are slower sections on this album too. While there is definitely still chugging, it isn't as much as you'd probably expect. There are some great solos on here. In my opinion, the solo in the title track is the best solo the band has ever recorded. The solo is melodic, beautiful sounding, atmospheric and really chilling to me. There are also a few clean guitar segments that sounding really beautiful and cold, like in "Emptiness" and "Naked and Cold." The drumming is kind of what you'd expect from a deathcore band (a lot of blast beats, double bass and fills), but the drumming is fantastic for what it is and Lee Stanton is an extremely talented drummer. The number of breakdowns is reduced, but all of the breakdowns on here are insanely crushing (the breakdown at the beginning of "Fur and Claw" being a personal favorite of mine) and there aren't any breakdowns that I feel overstay their welcome.

CJ is an amazing vocalist who has a wide range, but honestly, the vocals are the one thing I actually think that Hate has a general advantage of over Holy War. It's not that the vocals have lost any sort of power this time around, because they haven't, but it's the fact that despite his range, the vocals on this album are mostly just mid-ranged growls. His high screams are nearly absent and while the lower growls are used a bit more often than the high screams, they still aren't nearly as often as the mid-ranged growls. However, when he actually does highs and lows, they sound fantastic. I would've liked if there was more vocal variation on this album (especially more high screams), but since I love the sound of CJ's mid-ranged growls, it's not something that bothers me and it's not something I feel is worth deducting points for.

In terms of lyrics this time around, they've decided to write about things that are currently ruining the world, such as animal cruelty (Fur and Claw), religious bullshit (the title track, "Child of Sorrow") and corrupt political leaders ("Deliver Us to Evil," "Violent Reckoning"). I feel that these lyrics are their best yet and are more mature than on their previous albums (not that I think their previous lyrics are bad, but still). The title track and Child of Sorrow have anti-religious lyrics, but they're done in a more mature fashion here than they are on The Adversary. In those songs, they're talking about the types of horrible, unnecessary horseshit religion causes, like holy wars (bad pun intended) whereas on The Adversary, in short, they were basically just saying "hail Satan, fuck Jesus." The lyrics are even better when you hear them through CJ's delivery. Reading them on their own, the lyrics are already chilling, but when combined with CJ's vocals, it just adds to it.

Overall, this is a fantastic album and I believe it to be the best deathcore release of 2015 (hell, the only album of last year that stops it from being album of 2015 on my list is the Black Dahlia Murder album that was released that same year). Sadly, around the end of 2015, CJ left the band and the music business in general. However, I am glad that they released this album before he left the band. I hope that the next vocalist that joins the band is a great one and that they continue to release awesome music.