Out of Toronto, Ontario, comes one great Thrash Metal act. Sludgehammer are back for their second album, Antechamber. This time around, with a new vocalist. Between the time of The Fallen Sun and Antechamber some changes had to happen and Sludgehammer introduced new vocalist Josh Stephney. Together with Stephney, the band has played many shows and finally, as of today, released their second album. So now it's time to jump into the fire and take a look at whether or not the wait was worth it.
The album kicks off with the first single, “No Control”. Starting off with a chugging riff reminiscent of old school Decapitated it doesn't take long for the song to take on a form of its own. Once Stephney jumps in and starts to take control, the real sound of Sludgehammer starts to come out. Opting to keep to a mostly quicker pace, the only time the band returns to that intro sound is during the guitar solo. In “No Control” alone, the sound changes quite a bit. The chugging start, fast paced verse into chorus and even faster after that. This is the norm for Sludgehammer, throughout Antechamber the band isn't scared to lay all their cards on the table at once.
Breaking the norm though, “Broken Sea” opts instead to keep a midtempo, heavily melodic sound going throughout the song, only choosing to sway ever so slightly throughout the song. Mixing in Jeff Wilson (guitar, vocals) and Dan Ayers’ (bass, vocals) clean vocals to the song, and throughout the album, adds a lot of layers that help build up the grandiose sound that Sludgehammer strive for. This is even more prevalent in “Climatic Death”, which the band has released a music video for. The contract between the clean and hard vocals brings even more emphasis to the warning that this song brings. If you don't want to think that far into the song and don't care too much about the environment, then you'll still dig this song because the instrumentals are intense. The song is heavy, especially around the chorus and even jumps into a blast-ier section of instrumentals right after singing about your climatic death.
“Balance of Life” is probably the most experimental song on the album for the use of clean and hard vocals. Featuring some of the lowest vocals from Stephney and more clean vocals than any other song on the album. The chorus is almost a conversation back and forth, clean to harsh. The verses feature Stephney's low sections and if nothing else, “Balance of Life” has the best guitar solo on the album, leading right into the end of the song. The middle of the album was definitely a good spot for this, if it doesn't jive well, then at least there's still the second half the album. The album closes out with easily the most Thrash song on the album, “Line 'Em Up”. If you need a song dedicated to the party lifestyle, this is it, entirely based on getting blackout drunk and for us metalheads, thrashing and enjoying the party. The song is focused entirely around Stephney's low vocals, so for those who prefer absolutely zero cleans, this is the song. It's not over the top in any way, the instrumentals shred and there's some killer solos, but at the end of the day it's just a party hard Municipal Waste style Thrash song that would work perfectly as an opener or closer to any set.
At the end of the day, Sludgehammer took everything they knew from their debut release, evolved on it and tried some new formulas. Antechamber holds up perfectly beginning to end, this is an album that literally meets the definition of “all killer, no filler”. For those looking for something heavy, something to bang their heads to, this is it.
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