Review Summary: Weep for the life that you've led
It is a rare thing indeed for a band to write their best album to date six records into their career. Rarer still is it that a band continues to evolve and experiment with music after over a decade of writing and touring in what has become familiar to them. Demon Hunter has previously shown that they are not afraid to stray out of their comfort zone, having ventured into the realm of death metal with their album
The World Is A Thorn. With the release of
True Defiance, the band assured their listeners that they were not even close to their decline.
Right out of the gate,
True Defiance hits with a fast paced drum beat that could have been taken straight from a Black Flag record on the opening track
Crucifix, which is followed by a series of songs that each have their own distinct flavor and influences, making one wonder if this is the still the same band that released
Storm The Gates Of Hell (not a terrible album, but it doesn’t vary much when it comes to structure or sound). The only time the band seems to slip back into the traditional Demon Hunter song structure is with the second and third to last songs on the album:
We Don’t Care and
Resistance. One of the most remarkable things about this record is the song
Means To An End. Demon Hunter has never released a solely instrumental track, and
Means To An End does an exquisite job as a palate cleanser and transition to the last part of the album. The closing track
Dead Flowers is a ballad whose synthesized instrumental melody harkens one back to tracks such as
The Tide Began to Rise and
My Heartstrings Come Undone. However, if there is one flaw with the ending to
True Defiance, it is that
I Am A Stone (included as a bonus track on the deluxe version of the album) would have been a much better closer. While
Dead Flowers is not a weak song,
I Am A Stone features both some of Ryan Clark’s best written lyrics, and the band’s best composition so far of a song offering only a string section as instrumentation. As
True Defiance is Demon Hunter’s most experimental and diverse album to date, it would have been apt to end with a song that showcases how far the band has come.
One of the most impressive improvements in the band is the drumming of Yogi Watts. In past Demon Hunter records, the percussion has taken a backseat to guitars and vocals, but
True Defiance brings a sense of balance to the band’s instrumentation. There are multiple songs on the album where it is evident that the drums drive both the rhythm and dynamic, most notably on the tracks
God Forsaken,
Wake, and
This I Know. The drums typically just define the syncopation of the guitars and vocals, but on
Wake, the drums switch to a different beat halfway through the verse while the other elements remain consistent, causing the dynamic of the music to change drastically.
The other notable improvement on
True Defiance is the vocals of Ryan Clark. Clark continues to push the limits of his vocal chords, increasing both his vocal and screaming range. Both the melodies and harsh vocals on this record are much better and more hard-hitting than Demon Hunter’s previous work, but the most pleasing change that Clark made with the vocals on this album was their pervasiveness. Over the past five records, the vocals have been prevalent in nearly every moment of every song, but this record reveals that Clark has matured enough as a songwriter to know when to let the song breathe, letting both the emotion of the instrumentation and the meaning of his lyrics to soak in for the listener.
True Defiance would have earned a solid 5.0 on this review, if it were not its fatal flaw: the guitar solos. Patrick Judge is nowhere near an incompetent soloist; we know this from his writing on
The World Is A Thorn and his previous work in the southern metal group The Showdown. However, it seems that he has not fully mastered the knowledge that not every song on a metal album needs a guitar solo. The solos are very technically impressive, but their presence in nearly every song on the album slightly homogenizes an otherwise diverse cast of tracks.
As a whole,
True Defiance is the closest that Demon Hunter has ever come to a flawless record, and will stand out as one of their best albums for years to come.
Favorite Tracks:
Crucifix
Wake
Tomorrow Never Comes
I Am A Stone
