Review Summary: Demon Hunter tosses a juicy steak of an album to the ravenous wolves.
Demon Hunter has got to be one of my favorite bands ever, and Storm the Gates of Hell is an amazing album whether you’re a metalhead or not. The melodic aspects will please anyone who isn’t, so check this out.
The title track of this album is a brutal thrashfest with metalcore screams throughout and with a blasting chorus that will bang your head before you realize why you’re getting a headache. 10/10.
Lead Us Home. A generic Demon Hunter song from a first listen of the verse and chorus, but if you dig deeper into the chorus itself, you realize that this is a huge step forward for DH in the melody department. A very atmospheric, chorale-ish step. During the breakdown, Ryan Clark gives a reference to Slipknot, the only one I could ever find. He growl/mumbles a few words about broken wrists in a Corey Taylor-like manner. 8/10 for the new attempt at melody, 6/10 for the rest.
Sixteen is much more original than its predecessor. With a minute-and-a-quarter long intro, it’s pretty long, but also very experimental. Bruce Fitzhugh (of Living Sacrifice) guest vocalizes…and completely steals the show. His outbursts for the pre-chorus are violent and edgy, in complete contrast to the swaying chorus that follows. The lyrics during the breakdown, I must admit, are interesting at least: “Farewell to false pretension, farewell to hollow words, farewell to fake affection, farewell, tomorrow burns.” 9/10.
The first single, Fading Away, is a slight experiment for the Hunter brethren. They swapped the vocal styles around, making the verses clean and part of the chorus screamed, but there’s much less scream. However, the major part of the chorus is a clean (very high), radio-friendly bit that will amuse non-fans as well as the hardcore ones. This is the most poppy song DH has ever done, and it isn’t horrible… Not a classic song in any way, but solid and passable. 8/10.
Next is a stunning track. Carry Me Down is the first ballad and the second single of STGOH, and is absolutely gorgeous. A blip forward into Ryan Clark’s funeral, the song speaks of his faith and how he will enter heaven. The chorus is so comforting that it just drops the tension built up by the metalcore of the previous songs. 10/10.
At first look at its title, I thought A Thread of Light was going to be another ballad. It couldn’t be further away. It’s a pulsing, angry song full of snarls courtesy of Monsieur Clark. Even the chorus sounds slightly ticked off despite being the soft spot of the song. 9/10.
The hardcore continues. I Am You is as heavy as Demon Hunter gets. Full of lyrics of swords and dead, it’s a metalcore pumper-upper of the same ilk of Not I and Beheaded. The guitars are thick and tight and heavy as anything and the chorus is almost inviting the listener to go out and send demons back to the abyss from whence they came. 10/10.
Again, DH experiment it up. On track 8, Incision, the verses are clean vocals and the chorus is screaming. The verses are actually tinged ever so slightly with country-rock-ish sound. Despite my extreme doubt at first, this unexpected style seems to work pretty well for the Hunters. The repeated screams of “Cut if off!” are an irresistible hook. 9/10.
Another ballad. Entitled Thorns, this one is so full of hooky melody it’s impossible to resist, it almost sounds familiar at the first listen. It would be a perfect song for radio play, having a pop-rock ballad feel that makes it sound as if it could have been written by Daughtry. The chorus is a sing-a-long for the masses; you’ll know the words by the second listen. This is one of my favorites on the album. 10/10.
Follow the Wolves is full of vigorous guitars and empowering lyrics, along with faster trade-offs between screaming and singing. It’s an interesting listen, and has good bits of both melody and intensity. 10/10.
The penultimate track on Storm the Gates of Hell, Fiction Kingdom, is the last one that I especially like. The verses are angry and full of lyrics of graves, giving a near death metal tone despite the halfway pop chorus. This song I only briefly listened to at first, and didn’t give it a second glance. But on a deeper indulgence, I realized it’s plenty interesting, if not more. 9/10.
The Wrath of God, I think, is the one song on this album I have no desire to listen to. The verses are generic and the chorus is another stale rerun from the Summer of Darkness days, and not even a semi-good Beauty Through the Eyes of a Predator one. 4/10.
Overall I give this a 4.5, just for the few spurts of generic metalcore that the rest of the album puts to shame.
Recommended: Everything but Wrath of God.
