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Ares Kingdom - Incendiary

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 March 29 2010 at 01:58:31 AM



Revival ends here. In the years following their tempestuous exit from Kansas City occult Metal outfit Order From Chaos, drummer Mike Miller and guitarist/songwriter Charles Keller have remained as dedicated partners in Ares Kingdom. Stronger than ever on their second album, the duo re-team with vocalist Alex Blume and Doug Overbay for Incendiary, a blitzkrieg of martial Thrash that proves the band's stripes over and over in a world of imitators and fallen gods just begging to be put out to pasture.

Keller's complementary career as military historian, musician and even his lesser known work as director of the H.G. Welles Society account for much of Ares Kingdom aesthetic, including the use of a startlingly prescient WWI-era war bonds poster as this albums cover art. More frequently than not his solos become the highlight of every track. Unpolished yet versatile and strikingly poignant, providing a much desired bit of variation despite Blume’s hefty warbeast cries. A melodic sense and fury not heard since the early days of Mustaine and King, shreds and slides spiraling out from the swelling rhythm of the opening title-track, like some fearsome upgrading of "Aces High." No phony, drunken Finnish "classical," shit, but strafing violence concealing grace that cuts you down. The leather ain't even dried by the time the band kicks into "Beasts that Perish," with engines chuffing black smoke upon those who "strike at the world they pretend to understand."

Conflict and strife , whether based in history or fantasy preceding some horror yet to come, here become paramount. "Without these motivators," Keller once opined "we might -- unless we were very careful -- devolve into something not unlike H.G. Wells' vacant and pathetic Eloi, ripe for enslavement... or extinction." That sentiment now set to music, immersed as ever in this vital want of combat, paired with biblical allegory to paint the darkened cycle of mankind: "And when faith has died / New gods will arise / To ascend a pestilent throne / And embrace chaos and death."

Now, on a much smaller scale, Ares Kingdom fulfill a similar promise.The plague of retro cosplay puppets and weak-willed copycats ain't gonna cure themselves.Too long growing fat and middle class. Slow death of the soulless. The only way to stop the wound bleeding is to burn, baby, burn. I give you Incendiary.

[Todd DePalma]
Ares Kingdom
Incendiary
2010
Nuclear War Now!



type: reviews    keywords: thrash metal, lhp036, war and pain,   

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