### Army Rising: Impending chaos

#### 18/11/11 || revenant

Since I’ve never heard of these lads before, I decided to research up a bit on them while listening to their debut record. This is how they’ve introduced themselves on their facebook page: “We Are Army Rising! We are a 4 piece metal band from Fethard, Tipperary, Ireland.” 4 piece you say? Let’s look at their picture then:

Right, a four piece. Clearly we’re not in the land of geniuses here. Oh well, at least these Irishmen actually know what metal is, unlike certain other people of Irish origin who may have written a bunch of rambling reviews whilst pondering the grey skies overhead (dig too subtle?). In fact, I’d bet these young bucks have listened to nothing but metal judging from their musical output. Let’s see, a nice balanced diet of Pantera, Metallica and Iron Maiden is definitely what these lads have grown up on. Their music is mostly thrashy, with plenty of groove driven breakdowns and melodic chorus sections (no pop-synth though, which is apparently also very metal). Their vocalist sounds like a cross between James Hetfield and John Bush, and does a fine job throughout the album. The music is quite catchy, but does suffer from “heard it all before” syndrome. Regardless, it does contain plenty of energy and is a better purchase option than the latest Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica albums, so there’s a definite positive there.

*7/10 Math skills aside, these guys do a pretty good job. *