Review Summary: The slaughter is a necessary means of total war
Axis of Advance decided to take a different approach following 2001's
Strike. Not in terms of musical direction, mind you: they were still a war metal outfit through and through. I'm talking their approach
to their unchanged war metal sound, if that makes any sense: while
Strike was ostensibly a concept album, 2002's
The List forgoes any concept and simply focuses on what war metal does best: aggressive, cacophonous songs about war, death, and science fiction, and while that may seem like a drawback, the way that
Strike executed its concept wasn't very good, so the band realizing it helped elevate
The List.
"Annihilation" kicks things off with a fade-in featuring the sound of what can only be described as all hell breaking loose, followed by drummer James Read kicking the doors down and launching into one of his trademark machine gun blast beats, with guitarist Jason "Wör" McLeod and bassist Chris "Vermin" Ross matching their instruments to said introductory chaos before launching into our first tale about a soldier so psychotically devoted to his cause that he eventually begins to succumb to his own thoughts, backed up by the same psychotic black metal-influenced screams that was one of
Strike's most positive aspects. The band keeps up the intensity throughout all the tracks, and are a bit more focused on the faster sections this time around, although slower-paced elements, such as an absolutely
nasty breakdown mid-way through "The Torture", are still quite present throughout
The List. The vocals also focus far more on the raspy, higher-pitched black metal shrieks throughout the album, with the deep, guttural growls peppered throughout their previous work primarily relegated to backing vocals—a decision that actually works quite well in their favor, as it makes the center-stage shrieks sound far more evil than they usually would. However, the growls still do occasionally get brought out to the forefront, most prominently on "Namination", which discusses how an unspoken force have made the inhabitants of Earth their playthings dedicated nigh-exclusively to fighting each other for their own amusement, and the beginning of "Supremincer", which focuses more on what war metal does best...war.
McLeod's guitar lines are a bit more heavy on tremolo picking this time around, fitting the faster nature of
The List, although Ross is once again relegated to following McLeod's guitar lines for the entire album, which production-wise is still standard for war metal: muddy, bass-heavy madness. The lyrical themes still focus nigh-exclusively on war (bar "The Torture", which deals with human experimentation), but with the concept album wankery from
Strike no longer a factor, the lyricism has made a bit of stride; although still dark and gruesome as is par for a genre with limited subject matter, with lines within such as "No one survives the dawn of the blackest day / Loyalty demands suicide, it is our time", the fact that the songs aren't trying to tell a cohesive story have made each individual track far stronger on that side of things. And that's why
The List succeeds a bit more than Axis of Advance's previous effort: less is indeed more.
