ALBUM REVIEW: Artillery From Heaven – Contention
CONTENTION are one of the very best of an absolute stack of straight edge metallic hardcore bands with an obvious taste for the 90s that have emerged in the last few years. Having fired some warning shots with a killer three-track promo released just before the pandemic, the Tampa, Florida outfit’s so-called straight edge holy war gained considerable momentum with the double barrage of the fantastic Laying Waste To The Kingdom Of Oblivion and Summer Offensive EPs in 2021 and 2022 respectively, and now the campaign enters its next phase upon the arrival of the band’s much-anticipated debut full-length Artillery From Heaven.
With some clear expectations set by the aforementioned releases, Artillery From Heaven delivers both in terms of sound and quality. CONTENTION have billed this as an “apocalyptic straight edge album” and as abstract as that may sound it actually makes a lot of sense when presented with the results; perhaps as you could also say of their some of their influences – like ARKANGEL, for example – there has always been an air of the end times to the band’s music. It’s there in the desperate rasp of vocalist Cosmo, the scorched char of the guitars, the sheer devastation wrought by every crushing breakdown – and of course the desolate themes of the album itself – but even beyond such specifics there is ultimately just an unmistakable sense of urgency, of high stakes, to Artillery From Heaven that makes it so utterly compelling.
That point becomes particularly important and impressive when one concedes that CONTENTION aren’t doing anything hugely unprecedented. Artillery From Heaven may concern itself with a not-too-distant end of days – an inevitable and impending doom that seems to loom just that little bit larger every time you look at your phone – but it does also evoke a very specific time of about 25 years ago; had it come out back then it would have sat proudly on the same shelves as classics from the likes of the aforementioned ARKANGEL and CONGRESS and REPRISAL, and of course the band’s own Floridian forebears in MORNING AGAIN. Not only that, but it would have held up to comparisons to any of them – as indeed it still does today.
The album itself plays out breathlessly; lonely harmonised guitars set something of a smouldering scene on an intro track bearing the band’s own name, but once that erupts into the first volley of vicious chugging the record stops only for a few samples and the moody instrumental interlude of Faustian Machinations as 22 minutes practically evaporate before you. To get into highlights would essentially involve writing out the tracklist in order, though few feel more utterly cataclysmic than the likes of Lobotomite Bliss and Chasm, where Cosmo screams lines like “And when you are finally gone there won’t be any sign you lived at all” and “I resolve to watch you fall” and breakdowns drop like nuclear warheads on cities stricken with panic and despair.
Yes, obviously, it isn’t 1999 and so CONTENTION will never quite score the same points for innovation as some of their influences, but for this generation, for this moment which is seeing such a glorious revival of this particular sound, they can safely count themselves as the absolute gold standard. Artillery From Heaven is a work of raging, blazing, straight edge fury that should be remembered and cherished until its vision of a world in ashes becomes a reality.
Rating: 9/10
Artillery From Heaven is set for release on May 3rd via DAZE.
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