Review Summary: What happened?
Until recently, War of Ages seemed like a metalcore band that had some potential. After releasing several above average albums for the genre and touring with the likes of As I Lay Dying and Demon Hunter it was safe to say they were making a name for themselves. So what happened? Well, quite frankly, "Return to Life" happened. Rather than improving upon their past work their latest album finds them re-hashing old ideas and regressing towards a more accessible sound.
Certain bands in metalcore are able to mix in clean vocals successfully with the screams. Unfortunately, War of Ages is not one of those bands. Although their 2010 effort "Eternal" started experimenting with this idea, it's clean vocals were more tolerable and weren't infecting every single song. This is not the case in their newest effort as almost every track seems to follow the scream/sing formula. As the album opens with 'Immortal' there is a real feeling of deja vu and it's hard to enjoy it's re-hashed sound. This is followed by "Redeemer", another painfully average song that is plagued by boring clean vocals. The rest of the album is basically more of the same and it's truly hard to make it through the entire thing.
Oddly, this release has many of the same qualities that made their past work enjoyable such as excellent guitar work and loud drums, but the instruments alone can't carry the album. Every enjoyable guitar solo or riff is accompanied by mediocre choruses or average vocals. Perhaps if they hadn't incorporated so much singing into the album and focused more on new ideas, they could have conjured up a better offering. Even the lyrics are redundant since they are essentially singing about the same thing in every song. At least bands like August Burns Red or As I Lay Dying explore different sounds and lyrical themes rather than making the same song over and over again.
It's rather unforunate this album is so average as the band has proven their potential in the past. Here's to hoping they make a drastic change the next time around because if they don't they will soon be forgotten along with countless of other lifeless metalcore bands.
