Following a five year break from original studio recordings, save for a release of cover versions a couple of years back (‘Veneration’), Ares Kingdom return, streamlined to a 3-piece, but ever so powerful as they always have been. ‘The Unburiable Dead’ deals with the Great War 1914-1918 lyrically, with a kind of chronological progression through history as the album progresses with the latter tracks dealing with the latter stages of the war. The eleven minute plus track ‘Stultifera Navis (Armistice and League) begins from a soldier’s point of view through to what is documented as a disastrous peace time process that occurred following the end of the conflict.
Musically, the album starts harsh and mixes multi-genre black/death/thrash, akin to their earlier material; however, this album seems to concentrate more on the songs rather than being too guitar riff driven. With these songs inspiration and confidence is improved to change up their arrangements. There is an instrumental ‘Writhe: Fettered to a Corpse’ and a few, if I am honest wasteful sections. There is a typical militaristic drum March part way through the title track, which adds character, but there are a few moments of feedback, noise and general ambience on other tracks that doesn’t really add any character for me. That said, I still highly recommend this album, especially as there are many references to Order From Chaos, a band Ares Kingdom are directly and indirectly linked too heavily in their history, in this instance with a much improved mature delivery.
Essentially, if you want a raw blackened death thrash assault, then this album is for you. There is a touch more class about this recording, other bands in this field tend to be really raw and quite haphazard in their expression and musical ability, Ares Kingdom are not like this, they are a finely tuned machine spouting out their bestial war anthems for the masses. A band I have worshipped since their inception and they are a band I still revere to this day.
(8/10 Paul Maddison)
Leave a Reply