A Hope For Home - Realis (2010)

Facedown Records, March 30, 2010

Tracklist

1. Nightfall
2. The Overman
3. Withering Branches
4. The Machine Stops
5. No Light
6. Post Tenebras Lux
7. First Light of Dawn
8. The Crippling Fear
9. The Warmth of the Heavens
10. Seasons
11. Ascension
12. After

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives on my favorite albums from the year 2010. A Hope For Home, an Oregon-based group, started out their career as a post-hardcore group and then transitioned to an abstract mix of sludge and post-metal. Realis was released under Facedown Records, a label that focuses on straightforward hardcore and metalcore, though sonically it diverges from that sound. Rather than following the template of the genre, A Hope for Home includes a lot of atmosphere and allows each song to progress at its own pace to a natural climax.  In 2011, the band would go further down the post-metal route with the seven-track In Abstraction, which has the theme of fire. 

Thematically, Realis has a strong emphasis on light and the absence of it, which is reflected in both the song titles and the album’s tonal shift from futility to hope. As the two-song introductory segue of "Nightfall" and "The Overman" would indicate, this is a project that is fully devoted to its strengths as a whole album - not a compilation of individual tracks. “Ascension” is the shining moment of the album with an expansive, magnificent instrumental section that lets the music convey emotion on its own. The bleak dreamscape of "No Light" is another song that stands out. The shift towards hope begins with the seventh track "First Light of Dawn", and the concepts are so well organized that Realis could easily be two separate EPs titled "Night" and "Dawn". Guitarist Tanner Morita has stated that this album marked the point where "we truly stopped writing music for others and began writing music for ourselves - raw, noisy, and imperfect as it may be."

A Hope For Home have created a dynamic masterpiece with this album. While "No Light" and "Ascension" are the songs that stand out the most to me, the album and the spiritual concepts behind it work marvelously as a whole.  For those reasons, Realis earns a near-perfect score of 9.5/10.  If you're a fan of post metal or post hardcore, make sure you don't miss one.

Demon Hunter - The World Is A Thorn (2010)

Solid State Records, March 9, 2010

Tracklist

1. Descending Upon Us

2. Lifewar
3. Collapsing
4. This is the Line
5. Driving Nails
6. The World is a Thorn
7. Tie This Around Your Neck
8. Just Breathe
9. Shallow Water
10. Feel As Though You Could
11. Blood In the Tears

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives on my favorite albums from the year 2010. Demon Hunter has had a long-running career, as their first album released in 2002, and has gained a reputation for earning a large fanbase despite rarely touring.  Outside of the band, frontman Ryan Clark and his brother Don have made their mark in the graphic design world with their art deco inspired studio, Invisible Creature Design.  2010 was a pivotal year for the artists on Solid State Records, so much so that there will be a few more albums from this label featured on this series. Additionally, this period marked the start of a stylistic shift for Demon Hunter where their use of keyboards and influences from the Swedish melodic metal (melodeath) scene became more prominent. In fact Soilwork singer Björn Strid and former Scar Symmetry vocalist Christian Älvestam both have guest features on this album with the tracks “Collapsing” and “Just Breathe”, respectively, both of which are among The World Is a Thorn's highlights. 

Ryan Clark is clearly a strong singer and this is evident on the slower ballad “Driving Nails”. The other time they slow things down is the closer "Blood In the Tears", which is good as well, but "Driving Nails" is the real emotional centerpiece of the record. Ryan’s vocal performance is moving and really shines on this song.  Another memorable cut is the melodic “Shallow Water” which has a excellent chorus and main riff.  There are a couple of tracks that underwhelm a bit.  "Lifewar" has an interesting idea but is little more than an extended outro for "Descending Upon Us", and I don't care for Dave Peters' guest vocal performance on the breakneck-paced “Feel as Though You Could”.  However, these don't take away from the standout material on this album, which is certainly one of Demon Hunter’s best projects to date.

The World is a Thorn marks a landmark release for the Seattle metal crew. With Demon Hunter, I feel that their output after True Defiance has waned in quality and become rather predictable and derivative of their earlier work. Subsequent projects like Extremist and Outlive went for the same formula and sound but did not reach the level set here. However, Demon Hunter's take on The World is a Thorn is a strong American incarnation of the Swedish metal sound, and contains some of their best songs overall. I give this album an overall score of 7/10, with the standout tracks being "Driving Nails", "Shallow Water" and "Collapsing".

The Breathing Process - Odyssey (Un) Dead (2010)

Siege of Amida Records, March 8, 2010

Tracklist

1. Hours
2. Grimoire
3. Leveller
4. Vultures
5. Pantheon Unravelling
6. Odyssey: (Un)dead
7. Starless: Eternal
8. Metamorphosis
9. Hordes
10. The Living Forest
11. Wind Ritual
12. The Opaque Forest
13. Decaying Form

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives on my favorite albums from the year 2010. Odyssey was one album that stood out to me primarily for branching out and sounding different. This Pennsylvania-based band is a good example of a relatively obscure group bringing European-inspired gothic and symphonic metal influence to an American death metal/deathcore style and pulling it off successfully.  

The keyboards played by Jared Sloan are prominent and bring a gothic undertone to the sound of The Breathing Process. Throughout the album, the keyboards alternate from a background instrument underlying the guitars to moments where they are a primary focus. The sung sections from clean vocalist Sara Loerlein further strengthen the atmosphere. I particularly like the fourth song “Vultures”, which is the first track she appears on. From then on she has a prominent role in the album and is the primary vocalist in the song “Wind Ritual”. “Vultures” has a excellent balance between Sara’s vocals and the low growls from John LaFreniere, and does a fine job showcasing the two sides of the band’s sound.

Odyssey is a pretty solid release from 2010. One area where it could improve is in consistency. There are some songs where the keyboards and other gothic metal elements don't mesh as well with the death metal ones. That being said, while the symphonic/death metal combination has been done before, it is clear that the band made an effort to be their own entity rather than following trends. This sense of nuance was refreshing in a year where many death metal and deathcore albums followed a formula to the letter, and thus it earns a score of 7/10.