Review Summary: Abusive feather slaps.
Demon Hunter have and always will be a generic metalcore band, but usually in a good way. Some worship them as gods, and while they don’t deserve human sacrifices as a loving message towards them, they do deserve some accolades. War is a great album, with war-like music that might give you the courage to stab a spear into the side of a Centurian - or perhaps not. That is their type of music, WWE entrance metalcore. It is for some and not for all like the 3 Musketeers’ chant stated drunk. It is musically effective if you like to smash and bash chins.
This album does indeed slap and then put a pretty bow on it and an apology letter and band-aid. The riffs go much harder, with more creative energy than you’d expect from these elders, yet the album also includes cuddly bear vocals. The lead singer/growler is the cuddly bear, I don’t know why I assume he’s cuddly, but maybe it’s because of his melodic vocals that make me imagine him tucking me into bed at night. Or maybe that’s just me. His singing has improved greatly since The Triptych, and that includes his harsh vocals which aren’t terrible here unlike in The Triptych. You might even say this album sounds
great, which is weird to say. The singing sounds much better unlike in The Triptych where it sounds like the man abused auto-tune to hit the same notes that are here. In other words, bear-man sounds much more natural here, he sounds cozy and like he wants to lull you into a fall sense of security until he forces you to listen to Design the Skyline.
One thing this album gets right is the combined singing and growling. It’s surprising how much variety they can put in an album that has no variety of sound. Still, it has some dece riffs and dece melodies, yet nothing goes hard enough for me to have a Demon Hunter themed party. That is the great failing of this album and also this band: it sounds good but I also don’t give a ***. Maybe cause it’s generic as all ***, adding nothing new to the genre and just playing the same music they’ve played for a billion centuries. You do the math.
In conclusion, this album is good enough. It lightly entertains for a little while like a good tickle, or a half filled chocolate milk cup. It has enough surprisingly edgy riffs to give you that bumpy ride, but not enough humps to form a new kink in your mind.
