Anterior - Echoes Of The Fallen

Review by Chop Dragged kicking and screaming from my usual diet of black and death metal, Anterior's latest offering was a pleasant surprise. Hooks, riffs, melody, no grimness? What's going on? Plenty, to put it succinctly. Time to be a bit more expansive... Crossover appeal seems to be the name of the game these days and Anterior certainly cover plenty of bases with this album, as "Echoes Of The Fallen" will appeal to fans of melodic death metal, metalcore, power metal, and classic rock to name but a few. Melodic death metal and metalcore fans will warm to the twiddly sections, sweep picking, arpeggios and beatdowns, whilst the dual guitar melodies will keep classic rock fans grinning too. The drumming is thoughtful without an over-reliance on double bass pedal work, whilst the vocals are frenzied throughoutHYPERLINK "http://www.myspace.com/anterior" without (thankfully) a clean section in earshot. Married to a crisp production, sonically it's all you could wish for. Intro "To Live Not Remain" sets the tone, building progressively and blending velocity and power admirably, prior to "Blood In The Throne Room" going for the jugular as a fast tempo, get the ball rolling, statement of intent. Curiously the title track is an intro to "The Evangelist" which I found somewhat bizarre much as the tracks work well together. Saving a double whammy – and I'd contend the best – until last, "Venomous" whilst retaining Anterior's trademark melody lines is more direct and thrashier, whilst "Senora De Las Sombras" closes the album emphatically. So, it's well played, well produced, and consistently good throughout, meaning you should rush out and buy it? Probably, although much as I applaud the component parts and indeed the end result, there's definitely nothing innovative here. Not to the point of you've heard it all before, but they're certainly not re-inventing the wheel either if you'll pardon the clichés. To summarise then, this is a solid album that will undoubtedly come into its own live and sit comfortably with older material in Anterior's forthcoming setlists. Ultimately if an album that overall comes across somewhere between Children Of Bodom, At The Gates, Killswitch Engage, Thin Lizzy, and Arch Enemy sounds like your idea of fun then you won't be disappointed. 7 out of 10 www.myspace.com/anterior