Shattered Sun "The Evolution of Anger" Review

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!

Live Report: Erimha, HIVE and AxMinister live at the Coalition // August 19th, 2016

                In an underground bar, literally down two flights of stairs, is the Coalition. The Coalition is known for being a great venue for small bands to play, especially Metal bands, and tonight was no different, while this show was extremely short notice the turn out wasn’t too bad for a night of old school Heavy Metal from AxMinister, insect themed Blackened Doom Metal from HIVE and Symphonic Blackened Death from the always wicked Erimha.

                Tonight was a late one, with AxMinister taking the stage at 10pm to start off the show. I don’t know how I’ve never come across these guys before; they played some great traditional Heavy Metal about history and had a killer stage show to boot, with frontman Nicholas Klaus looking like an executioner and their drummer constantly changing hats/helmets/masks throughout the set. While the set was kept short the band played a fair amount of songs including “Salvation” where their drummer rocked a Roman Centurion helmet, “Visceral Speed” which is just a great Thrash/Speed Metal tune that should remain a main stay for the band and before starting up into their last song guitarist Liam Maguire broke into his own rendition of “Eruption”. These guys deserve mad props, the turn out for the show as a whole was rather limited due to it being announced just a week prior, and for whatever reason some people don’t show up until the headlining band and just skip the supports but even with this the band wasn’t deterred from giving it their all, playing an amazing set and making at least one new fan.

Photo by Jenna McCarthy

                At about 11pm, HIVE took the stage with their signature brand of Blackened Doom Metal and their crazy stage outfits. Each and every member wore a cloak that covered their body and the Brood Mother, who performs vocal duties for the band, has symbols and writing all over theirs while having a piece of fabric covering their face. The other members, instead of fabric wore the old time doctor’s masks, which was ominous but felt like it fit the idea of this insect based band. HIVE’s set was rather short, which makes sense as they only have an EP out at this time, the band played the entirety of “Emergence” and basically laid out the life and death of a locust and the crowd loved it. The response was positive and a lot of the crowd were saying how good it was afterwards, which is always a good sign. My only complaint is I like movement and interaction from bands, it keeps the energy of the crowd up, but I’m sure between remaining ominous and those outfits it can be rather tough and will probably be something the band will figure out as they progress.

Photo by Jenna McCarthy

Photo by Jenna McCarthy

                Finally around the witching hour, it was time for Erimha to take the stage and man, even if the crowd wasn’t big, they were pumped. From the first note of “The First Law” the crowd was in awe, the pit opened up for those who wanted to be part of it, the chanting was met with response from most the crowd and the night was at its absolute best. Playing a mix of songs from their second album “Reign Through Immortality” and their latest release through Victory Records “Thesis Ov Warfare” it was amazing to see the energy these guys had. Highlights of the night were “Condemned To Desolation” which is just a monster of a song and “Fragmented Existence” which, while being slower, is an amazing song to get the hair going and no one wasted any time getting theirs flying around. While the set seemed short, coming up on about 50 minutes, no one was unimpressed with Erimha, everyone had a good Friday night and looked like they all left happy.

AxMinister Performance: 80/100

HIVE Performance: 80/100

Erimha Performance: 90/100