Five Magics Music: Chariots of the Gods "Ages Unsung" Review

These days it’s hard to write original Death Metal, if you want to be as gruesome as possible you’re going to be seen as a Cannibal Corpse rip off, if you want to be highly technical you’ll be a rip off of this band or that band and so on and so forth. Chariots of the Gods are a breath of fresh air though, willing to take the risk to walk that fine line between Death Metal and Deathcore, the way a lot of bands try and either sound like bland Death Metal or too violent Deathcore. The new album “Ages Unsung” is something that will be worth talking about, it’ll have some aspects that aren’t seen as “real Death Metal” and some sections that will make your jaw drop.

After a brief intro we enter the first song, “Tusk”, which is a pretty standard style of song with some fairly impressive guitar work. The notable thing about this song is the chorus features clean vocals (oh no) which wouldn’t be a problem generally, I think they match the song but I don’t find the style in which the lyrics are sung match the song and they definitely feel like more of an afterthought. “Of Prometheus and the Sacred Flames” along with a few other songs later in the album take on a much more Melodic Death Metal approach which is very reminiscent of In Flames. Arguably, any band that can pull off the old In Flames style of sound without sounding like a dead rip off deserves props.

The main song that deserves mentioning in this song for standing out above the rest is “War of the Gods”, simply because this song mixes all the styles of this album into one song, it is basically the perfect definition of this album. The versus are straight Melodic Death to keep you interested, but the chorus features harmonising clean and harsh vocals in what kind of reminds me of a lot of Deathcore/Metalcore songs. I know using the –core term turns a lot of people off but trust me, right here it’s perfectly fine, this song also features one of the only “breakdowns” on the album, which unlike a lot of –core bands is far from over used, it’s almost like an old Sepultura album, where it only happens a couple times and keeps you interested in what’s happening.

So, I will probably get crucified for talking about Deathcore, Sepultura, breakdowns and In Flames at essentially the same time, but Chariots of the Gods deserves a listen from you. I will argue the album might get old after a few listens and you’ll start to only listen to a few songs off of it, but it has a little bit of everything for everyone so check out “Ages Unsung” and find out which songs work for you.

85/100