Shattered Sun made a huge splash when they released their debut album "Hope within Hatred" back in 2015 and claimed their spot on the North American tour Mayhem Festival along side some of the biggest names like Slayer, King Diamond, The Devil Wears Prada and Whitechapel. Two years later, the band has just dropped their second album "The Evolution of Anger", a hard hitting, straight to the point piece of Thrash Metal/Melodic Metalcore.
"The Evolution of Anger" has its own sound and the biggest credit I can give it is the fact that it shows Shattered Sun have found their voice. While "Hope Within Hatred" was a solid release, the band tried many different sounds on that release to see what would stick. "The Evolution of Anger" has a consistent tone and it's anger. Songs like "Hollow Chains", "Keep Your Eyes Shut" and "Burn It Down" all show the bands power in different ways. "Hollow Chains" keeps true to that Melodic Metalcore/Thrash sound with a song that sounds like it could have easily been written by some of the legends like Testament themselves. Burn It Down keeps the tone going but with a more raw edge to it almost mixing the influential sounds of old school Thrash Metal with some more modern age Metalcore bands like As I Lay Dying and making a perfect monstrosity of Metal.
From beginning to end the album doesn't let up and while the songs do have a way of melding together, each of the songs still sounds independent and different from one another. For the most part the album transitions from song to song really well with no notable breaks that seem unnatural to the album. The album art is another big draw of this release, much like a story to the album itself the art is very much open to interpretation, but just looking at it the art is unique and seems to display a character much like "Hope Within Hatred" did which may end up being Shattered Sun’s signature to their covers.
Let’s just spill the beans and say it, if you liked "Hope Within Hatred", you’ll be beyond ecstatic with "The Evolution of Anger". This is an album that takes everything that was great about the first album, expands on it and polishes it, with this kind of upwards trajectory for the band I’m already looking forward to the band’s next outting!
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