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RELEASED:April 4th, 2006
PRODUCER:Julius Butty
LABEL: Vagrant Records
BAND:
Rody Walker
Tim Millar
Moe Carlson
Luke Hoskin
Arif Mirabdolbaghi |
+
Infectious energy, musical versatility, astounding chops, crystal-clear production
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The occasional odd compositional choice |
TRACKS:
1. No Stars Over Bethlehem 2. Heretics & Killers
3. Divinity Within 4. Bury The Hatchet 5. Nautical
6. Blindfolds Aside 7. She Who Mars The Skin Of Gods 8. Turn Soonest To The Sea 9. The Divine Suicide Of K. 10. A Plateful Of Our Dead |
OVERVIEW
Yes, that score is correct. And from a bunch of Canadians, nonetheless. Dang!
All joking aside, I’ve gotta get one thing out of the way before you guys think I’m off my rocker – this record is a virtual textbook on how to combine blistering instrumental virtuosity with prodigious songwriting chops and an almost-perfect compositional sense that results in a catchier-than-chicken-pox smash that may never see this side of 100,000 records, but is without a doubt one of the most interesting records I’ve heard in a few years, if not the decade.
If there was a recipe that one could hypothetically write to concoct the brilliant alchemy that Protest the Hero cooks up, it’d be something like this: start with the blistering technical skills of bands like Dragonforce and Children of Bodom, infuse those chops with the never-play-the-same-riff-twice, everywhere-at-once writing style of Between the Buried and Me or Glass Casket, throw in the compositional versatility of The Mars Volta or Mastodon, and top it off with a liberal (and I mean LIBERAL) dose of brash, spastic emo, a la Thrice or The Used. To those who are going to stop reading right now because I said emo, well, screw you. It’s your loss.
If nothing else, PTH impresses me for their complete irreverence for genre boundaries and songwriting conventions, and the fact that they can pretty much throw the rulebook out the window and still produce a record of this caliber is enough reason for me to shamelessly worship the dumb thing.
SONGS
Right from the feedback-drenched opening of “No Stars Over Bethlehem”, PTH puts their prodigious chops right to the forefront, with just the first minute featuring blistering displays of two-handed tapping (on guitars and bass, no less), turn-on-a-dime time signature changes, and youth-crew-style gang vocals. “Heretics and Killers” follows suit with a gut-busting signature breakdown and a great vocal performance that ranges from soaring falsettos to a power metal-esque wail to an almost-whisper, and “Divinity Within” is a bit more straightforward in terms of songwriting, but still bursting at the seams with the technical virtuosity and anthemic vocals that you really should be expecting from the band at this point. “Bury the Hatchet” features one of Walker’s most aggressive vocal performances on the record and a seriously devastating conclusion, while “Nautical” takes an almost Symphony-X sort of approach before ripping into a verse that smacks of the band’s more emo influences. “Blinfolds Aside” comes out of nowhere across as a deliciously demented hybrid of Dream Theater and Dookie-era Green Day with a ear-catching finger-picked outro, and “She Who Mars the Skin of Gods” continues to up the ante with another tasty blast of blister-inducing riffing – don’t miss the rapid-fire pull-offs on this one. “Turn Soonest to the Sea” is one of the band’s more versatile compositions, complete with the gang-vocal choral outro and a vicious off-kilter breakdown, and “The Divine Suicide of K” is probably my favorite track on the whole record, if for nothing else than for the straight-up beautiful conclusion and the goosebump-inducing female vocal accompaniment. This leaves “A Plateful of Our Dead” with a lot to live up to, but again PTH deliver with another sonic slice of excellence and close the record in style.
CONCLUSION
At this point, you might as well write “Fanboy” on my head with a Sharpie, and while I can’t deny that I love just about everything about this record, I really think this band has put out one of the most excellent genre-crossing records of the past few years, and the fact that none of the band members was past 20 at the time they recorded Kezia is nothing short of jaw-dropping. A lot of people will probably rip on this band for their irreverent combination of metal, emo, hardcore, prog, and just about every other hard music subgenre under the sun, but this record kicks the crap out of 98.9% of just about everything else I’ve heard in a long time.
Review
by Matt Rewinski
