Demon Hunter Storm the Gates of Hell

Tracklist:
1. Storm the Gates of Hell
2. Lead us Home
3. Sixteen
4. Fading Away
5. Carry Me Down
6. A Thread of Light
7. I Am You
8. Incision
9. Thorns
10. Follow the Wolves
11. Fiction Kingdom
12. The Wrath of God

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Demon Hunter has got to be one of my favorite bands ever, and Storm the Gates of Hell is an amazing album whether you’re a metalhead or not. The melodic aspects will please anyone who isn’t, so check this out.

The title track of this album is a brutal thrashfest with metalcore screams throughout and with a blasting chorus that will bang your head before you realize why you’re getting a headache. I give it a perfect 10 just because it restored my faith in the Christian metalcore community single-handedly.

Lead Us Home. A generic Demon Hunter song from a first listen of the verse and chorus, but if you dig deeper into the chorus itself, you realize that this is a huge step forward for DH in the melody department. A very atmospheric, chorale-ish step. During the breakdown, Ryan Clark gives a reference to Slipknot, the only one I could ever find. He growl/mumbles a few words about broken wrists in a very Corey Taylor-like manner. 8/10 for the melody, 6/10 for the rest.

Sixteen is much more original than its predecessor. With a minute-and-a-quarter long intro, it’s pretty long, but also very experimental. Bruce Fitzhugh (of Living Sacrifice) guest vocalizes…and completely steals the show. His outbursts for the pre-chorus are violent and edgy, in complete contrast to the swaying chorus that follows. The lyrics during the breakdown, I must admit, are beautiful: “Farewell to false pretension, farewell to hollow words, farewell to fake affection, farewell, tomorrow burns.” Shivers, man. 9/10.

The first single, Fading Away, is another experiment for the Hunter brethren. They swapped the vocal styles around, making the verses clean and part of the chorus screamed. However, the major part of the chorus is a clean (very high), radio-friendly bit that will amuse non-fans as well as the hardcore ones. Not a classic song in any way, but solid and passable. 8/10.

Next is quite possibly one of the most beautiful songs I have ever had the privilege to hear. Carry Me Down is the first ballad and the second single of STGOH, and is absolutely gorgeous. A blip forward into Ryan Clark’s funeral, the song speaks of his faith and how he will enter heaven (please don’t leave us, Ryan!). The chorus is so heartfelt and comforting that it melts the tension built up by the metal of the previous songs. This song will play at my funeral. Dead serious. 10/10.

At first look at its title, I thought A Thread of Light was going to be another ballad. Dead wrong, buddy, dead wrong. It’s a pulsing, angry song full of snarls courtesy of Monsieur Clark. Even the chorus sounds slightly ticked off despite being the soft spot of the song. Overall pretty durn good, I plum reckon. 9/10.

The hardcore continues. I Am You is as heavy as Demon Hunter gets. Full of lyrics of swords and dead, it’s a metalcore pumper-upper. The guitars are thick and loose and heavy as anything and the chorus is almost inviting the listener to go out and kick demon butts back to the abyss from whence they came. 10/10.
Again, DH experiment it up. On track 8, Incision, the verses are clean vocals and the chorus is screaming. The verses are actually tinged ever so slightly with country-rock. Despite my extreme doubt at first, this new style seems to work pretty well for the Hunters. The repeated screams of “Cut if off!” hook me in every time. However, don’t bring too much country in, guys. 9/10.

Woo, another ballad. Entitled Thorns, this one is so full of hooky melody its impossible to resist. It would be a perfect song for radio play, having a poppish feel to it. The chorus is a sing-a-long for the masses; you’ll know the words by the second listen. This is one of my favorites on the album. 10/10.

Follow the Wolves is another one of my personal favorites off STGOH. Bouncing guitars and empowering lyrics, along with faster trade-offs between screaming and singing, make it an original (and uber-pwnage) song. The entirety of this rocks my socks off, and I don’t even wear socks. 10/10.

The penultimate track on Storm the Gates of Hell, Fiction Kingdom, is the last one that I especially like. The verses are angry and full of lyrics of graves, giving a near death metal tone despite the halfway pop chorus. This song I only briefly listened to at first, and didn’t give it a second glance. But on a deeper indulgence, I realize it’s pretty good. 9/10.

The Wrath of God, I think, is the one song on this album I have no desire to listen to. The verses are generic and the chorus is another stale rerun from the Summer of Darkness days, and not even a semi-good one. 4/10.

Overall I give this a 4.5, just for the few spurts of generic metalcore that the rest of the album puts to shame. Recommended: Everything but Wrath of God.