Walls Of Jericho - The American Dream
Posted on July 29, 2008 at 5:33 pm by admin
I counted Walls Of Jericho as one of three very big hardcore bands where metal made its way into their sound, and ever since, those bands continued progressing on each album. Unfortunately one band stopped progressing, and the other ended up copying another band heavily, leaving Walls Of Jericho as the final big path-forger.
I’ve only heard a few songs sparsely from Walls Of Jericho over time. Hearing them live in the earlier “All Hail the Dead” era, the band was focussed on chord running metallic hardcore. I only heard a few songs from “With Devils Amongst us All”, and the Slayer comparisons I heard were quite apt.
“The American Dream” comes off as a strange beast, as the band morphs from one incarnation of metal-tinged hardcore to full-on metal songs that barely sound hardcore at all, yet they tie the two elements together with songs that actually split time between the two.
The pure metal songs are themselves riff-fests throughout, owing much to Slayer’s blade-sharp thrash attack while mixing in dissonant tones, with the mid-paced versions being lock-step oriented. On the complete opposite side are pure chord-running race to the finish line hardcore songs, sometimes lacking a breakdown. While this sounds like a huge clash, Walls Of Jericho tie everything together with songs that split time between the two, while adding tiny variations to each songs, like “III. Shock Of The Century” featuring artificial harmonics, or the Alive In Chains like singing in “A Long Walk Home”. Breakdowns are switched up as well, and while single note breakdowns are present, they’re only half of the tempo droppers on the effort, with the rest being pounding riff oriented. The breakdown shakeup makes the metalcore styled breakdowns hit so much harder. Throuhgout the whole effort though, vocalist Candace Kucsulain pours the conviction off with a throat shredding snarl. Except of course for “The Slaughter Begins”, a piano ballad hinted at with tiny piano intros and breaks where Candace goes all soft and bluesy.
Pleasurably cathartic while fresh and moving forward just enough.
Released July 29th, 2008
Walls Of Jericho at MySpace
Trustkill Records at MySpace
Buy this album at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Copyright © 2007, Xtremely Media, All Rights Reserved
