Time Signature Road to rock...

Genre: power-thrash

The Canadian thrashers in Titans Eve are back with another hard present for you, and if you like your thrash metal to be more than just metan thashing madness, then this is a present that just might please you.

While not exactly progressive, Life Apocalypse does strike me as being innovative, and it is definitely quite varied. Combining aggressive thrash metal riffs (there are even some blastbeat sections in 'Hollow Gods' with more rock and groove oriented alements, Titans Eve offer music which is both considerably modern sounding and considerably retro sounding at the same time. An integral element of the songs on this album is melody. The melodic aspect is brought to the forefront in the instrumentals 'Overcast', 'Descension' and 'A Wound the Never Heals', but it also figures in the songs proper on the album in the form of melodic leads, harmonic riffs and melodic choruses. This, I would argue, gives the album an overall power-thrash feel, and it might appeal to fans of thrash metal and US power metal alike.

There is nothing wrong with the musicianship, and the Canadians definitely know how to write songs which are both thrashy and melodic and, I would say, quite sophisticated. The vocals are, at first, a bit of an odd man out, because they have more of an aggressive hardcore punk feel to them, but, once you get used to them, you become able to appreciate the vocals as just an additional layer of variation in the music.

Life Apocalypse is a prettyn good melodic thrash metal album from a band that shows a lot of promise. Fans of power-thrash should, if they can live with the hardcore-oriented vocals, definitely check it out.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)