A Breach of Silence – The Darkest Road
A Breach of Silence – The Darkest Road (2014)
Directed by: Col Cadell
What music do you associate with Australia? If you said Rolf Harris, a didgeridoo or ‘Tie me kangaroo down, sport’, congratulations, you’re a racist. If you said brutal metalcore, then you’re either a committed metalcore fan, or Australian, or both. You might also be a racist, but for now that remains to be seen.
To refer to A Breach Of Silence as Australian metalcore may upset some fans, however. With their vocal breakdowns and technical proficiency they are known more often as ‘powercore’. In some peoples eyes that’s just splitting hairs, but after hearing their latest album The Darkest Road, there’s no doubt the Brisbane five-piece have earned that moniker. The entire album is a behemoth of surging distortion, clattering percussive aggression and throaty grunts.
In truth, this is just metalcore with a more technical leaning, blending elements of math-metal a la Dillinger Escape Plan to make intricate but brutal aural beat-downs. While the sheer scale of aggression being discharged on your ear drums will captivate some, for anyone looking for a more original twist to their metal, they’ll most likely walk away disappointed. The groups technical prowess isn’t in doubt, but there’s little to entice new fans to the metalcore formula.
For their second album, A.B.O.S have once again used Swedish producers Fredrik Nordstrom and Henrik Udd (Bring Me the Horizon, Arch Enemy, In Flames). It seems like a good choice, with the percussion rolling out the speakers as crisp and clear as a winters morning. The riffs may loiter around the standard pinch harmonics/drop D end of the sonic spectrum, but they have a real depth that allows the vocals to stand at the forefront of the sound. It may not be the most original sound, but this is metalcore nailed dead on. The band is known for their power-metal vocal breakdowns, and ‘powercore’ seems a suitably ambiguous name to give to this brand of freight-train metal. The riffs thunder along giving your ears only a moments reprieve before diving back below a surface of pure distorted anarchy. Clocking in at over 56 minutes, The Darkest Road may get a little tedious for some, but if you like your metalcore loud, brash and relentlessly brutal, then A Breach Of Silence have probably just made your year.
The opening track entitled ‘T.P.N.E. (The Party Never Ends)’ pays tribute to the late Bon Scott of AC/DC, and does a good job of introducing what A.B.O.S. is all about, but the best moment of the album has to be ‘Silhouette’, an ear-splitting burst of technical aggression that feels like a hand of black sound slowly encasing you. The build-up to numbers like ‘This is the End’ helps give some variation to the album too, swinging from melodic instrumentals to ultra-dexterous shredding so fast it’ll make your head spin.
The biggest change to the groups sound is probably the introduction of new lead vocalist Rhys Flannery, delivering more of a standard ‘metal’ growl than with their 2013 debut Dead or Alive. That’s not to say the vocals are more mundane, but his deeper brand of vocals lends credence to the groups heavier than lead approach. Likewise, the guitar and bass have progressed into more technical territory, but feel far more confident than in their debut album. ‘Vultures’ gives the listener a taste of just how melodic heavy music can get, buoying the unstoppable aggression with a cadence that makes sitting still while it plays all but impossible.
So The Darkest Road may not be the most original metal album out this year (look to Kayo Dot’s Coffins on Io for that accolade), but it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable. The lyrics may be trite, the method tried and tested, but when metalcore (or powercore) sounds this good, you aren’t looking for meaning, you’re looking to close the bedroom door and jump around until you feel sick.
The Darkest Road is out now on Eclipse Records.
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