Hail The Apocalypse

My first impression of Avatar’s latest offering, Hail The Apocalypse, was immediate. The album is a big bang of metal vocals, classic rock vocals, metal, carnival tunes, melodies, strange sounds, and a lot of stuff that just falls into the crevice that you end up digging up later on return visits. 

 

The band is a product of the Swedish death metal explosion of their home territory but the album is a strange birth of idea’s brought together in the weird confines of Thailand, where the band recorded the album. Apparently in the horror movie environment of a fanatics converted home/studio that featured everything from Predator statues and a swimming pool made to look like He-Man’s Castle Grayskull. 

 

I was pretty blown away by the complexity of Hail The Apocalypse thanks to the killer percussion, dynamite guitar sound, and the amazing use of the most often ignored instrument, the bass guitar. Every member of the band shines on the album with insane solo’s and incredible uses of their instruments in ways that seem pretty fresh to me. Not to mention the switch ups in vocals from blood curdling to melodic and theatrical. Adding in all of the weird stuff like a wood block, carnival themes, and sci-fi sounding elements that I’m not even sure how they were created makes the album one that will keep your attention from the get go to the finale. Definitely check the band.