Review by Dan Perks

What have we come to expect from Chimaira? Crushing riffs, mind boggling kick pedal drumming and venomous brutal vocals spring to mind, and the “the Age of Hell” is packed full of all the ingredients that make Chimaira one of the best Heavy Metal bands on the planet.

“The Age of Hell” has a thrashy feel to it in places and feels like the band went back to their “Impossibility of Reason” album with some of the guitars on “The Age of Hell”.  The riffs are fast and “chuggy” and the lead work sits perfectly in between the rhythm guitars and pounding drums. One of the most talked about aspects of this album is that producer Ben Schigel played all the drums on the record, stepping into Andols’ shoes is no easy task but Ben’s drumming fits within the bands sound seamlessly, it may not quite be at the same technical level as that of Andols but it is extremely close.

The album does have a lot of diversity to it to, songs such as “The Year Of The Snake” and “Born in Blood” have a more modern deathcore vibe to them (the latter track even features Whitechapel vocalist Phil Bozeman). Whilst tracks like “Clockwork” and “Beyond the Grave” have a more anthemic atmospheric feel to them with vocalist Mark Hunter using more of his singing range to accentuate the tracks. Don’t let this put you off as this is still one of the heaviest and finest albums Chimaira have produced and it will have you screaming along and wanting to throwdown from the start.

Chimaira have released the album free with Septembers issue of Metal Hammer Magazine and will tour the UK in early 2012

8.5/10

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