Thy Art Is Murder - Holy War
Thy Art Is Murder hail from Western Sydney, and formed in 2006. This their third album, and second for Nuclear Blast, is an impressive foray deeper into extreme metal, that takes their deathcore sound into more heavier technical metal territory, and creates a really ferocious album, that if you like metal, you absolutely need to give a listen.
This is a band that also takes risks, and seems to consequently hit controversy. In February 2014 on the Soundwave Festival tour (a travelling Australian rock/metal/punk festival), after encouraging fans to cross the stage barriers and join them on stage, they were kicked off the tour and then reinstated. The cover of this new album, also seems like it might spark some controversy.
Opening track Absolute Genocide has some ringing melodic guitar cords, that set an atmospheric beginning for some pulverising, blast beat driven death metal, with vocalist Chris ‘CJ’ McMahon’s piercing death metal growl aggressively pushing the track into your face. Great stuff!
The lyrics for this track and other tracks on the album, also show a band socially aware, and determined to rail at the major injustices in the world. Try these powerful lyrics about their environmental concerns on Absolute Genocide:
‘the carbon air is stale
foul winds swept through the iron trees
as the earth gasps for air
inhale the exhaust
hollow the pines
we are not the predators
we are the suicide’
As guitarist Andy Marsh has been quoted as saying about the origins of the new album ‘We wrote about concerns of ours, real issues, hardships that people are facing around the world today’.
Fur and Claw sets out some of the band’s newer technical death metal credentials, and it’s a beast of a sound; and is that a keyboard we hear sneakily coming out of the mix? Even the traditional deathcore breakdown in the song, sounds more akin to tech-death, and something that Decapitated might come up with. Turn the volume up loud on this one!
Emptiness starts off sounding like progressive rock deities King Crimson before diving into heavier territory; no honestly….perhaps the harbinger of another influence this creative band intend to bring into their future musical mix. They are certainly not a band to stand still.
Child of Sorrow is where the driven deathcore and techdeath sounds, come together with a dash of black metal, to create something very special. This is metal at its most edgy, complemented by a set of very bleak and angry lyrics. CJ McMahon’s vocals are at their most intense and also melodic on this track, a real tour de-force in death metal singing!
So there we have it, Holy War is a great new album from Thy Art Is Murder, with plenty of creative and engaging musical development in evidence, that means that it is something for both established and newer fans of extreme metal to dive into; and if you are reading this and are now tempted to take your first foray into extreme metal, close your eyes and jump in, you wont be disappointed.