Review Summary: Pit warriors - and God warriors - rejoice!
We have all been there – drenched in sweat and gasping for breaths of fresh air that never seem to arrive. The crowded room is muggy and you are ready to mug, yourself. On cue, the front man orders that the audience be split in halves. What once was an innocent crowd of bystanders suddenly evolves into two participating partners in pain – forced to clash and beginning to buzz with bloodlust. Add a little piss and vinegar and hey, you are all set to toss a human salad. You’re starving; if not for a knuckle sandwich, then for a swig of some salty tears. Knuckles white and teeth clenched, the command is given. Lord be with you and most importantly, your adversaries.
That passage above, my friends, summarizes the content found on Sovereign Strength’s second full length album,
The Prophecy.
With the sudden rise of punishing Christian metal acts, Sovereign Strength is just another fist in a crowd of unbridled, impassioned worship, proving that one kid’s Third Day is another kid’s The Gun Show. Describing this half an hour affair quite fittingly, the music here will make you stomp nonexistent ants, flail as if enjoying a cigarette in the midst of a gasoline shower and throw fists mercilessly because, as we all know, fist never run out of ammunition!
Cuts like the white hot “Darkest Sin” and “Last War” feature more chugs than an alcoholic stumbling upon an unsupervised communion chalice. “Bring Me Home” and “Shame” back off from breakdowns just long enough to offer listeners a hefty dose of the group’s hardcore roots, group chanting and all. Vocally, Jordan King is limited to or abides by standard – though at times, rather engaging – midrange screams. Really, nothing here musically will rip the jaws off of listeners and skip them across the floor. Fortunately for the sake of
The Prophecy, a couple guest vocalists – including Jamie Hanks of I Declare War on the aforementioned “Darkest Sin” – add a degree of diversity to what happens to be a rather monotonous affair.
While the intensity throughout these ten tracks is undoubtedly present, listeners will be hard-pressed to not be dizzied or even bruised by Sovereign Strength’s sonic approach.
The Prophecy is an exercise in unforgiving and uncompromising faith-based mosh-pit anthems, almost to a fault. Without the creative guitar noodling in “Words Without Meaning,” the torrid second half of album highlight “No Victory” or the melodic conclusion to album closer “Revival”, much of the record’s material blurs together, too intoxicated with drop-whatever tuning and standard time cymbal crashing to provide coherent and memorable songwriting.
Quite honestly, that is about it. Pit warriors, rejoice! One of these songs will probably be the last song an individual hears before becoming subject to the force of your haymaker. You’re not making hay, you’re ruining days. Listening to The Prophecy will not ruin a listener’s day because the effort as a whole is a rather intense, jarring and uncomfortable listen and if breakdowns are your fancy, consider this Fancy Feast for one’s musical diet. Man, that analogy was
purrfect.
