ALBUM REVIEW: Cold Epiphany – Voice Of Ruin
How familiar does this sound? You’ve got down for doors, the first band is on and they’re playing that kind of vague mix of melodeath, groove metal and metalcore with maybe a few bits of backing track to help them out. It’s solid enough and they’re blatantly someone’s favourite band, and maybe they’ve even got some uninitiated heads banging or a few raised horns or beer cups between songs, but it’s also going on a bit too long and you’re already thinking about how much your back’s gonna hurt tomorrow.
Perhaps all this is a bit mean to VOICE OF RUIN, but this really is the vibe that their new album Cold Epiphany gives off. The Swiss five-piece have shared stages with some all-time legends like SEPULTURA and HATEBREED and CHILDREN OF BODOM to name just a few; they’ve clearly been around long enough to know what they’re doing, and their sound is a tried and tested one which means that there isn’t loads to complain about while it’s on, but ultimately this record doesn’t do much at all to surprise its listeners or indeed to show them anything that they’ll have to hurry back to.
One reaction that is guaranteed to be fair is a generous amount of headbanging. VOICE OF RUIN certainly know how to write a compelling groove or a big anthemic chorus, and the production by guitarist Nicolas Haerri means that everything here packs a crisp modern punch that allows the invariably accomplished performances to shine.
And, to be clear, there’s a lot of genuinely good stuff on this. Bloody Salvation has a big soaring guitar line that could’ve definitely snuck onto any PARKWAY DRIVE record that’s come out within the better part of the past decade. Fifth track Unforgiven Sins meanwhile benefits immediately from a quieter intro that makes the subsequent frantic eruption all the more arresting, while tracks like Cyanide Stone and Dreadful Tears both draw quite flattering comparisons to the thunderous rhythmic power of latter-day GOJIRA, the former probably being the best thing on the record overall and elevated considerably by the striking clean vocals of Anna Murphy and some of the most prominent use of the album’s more symphonic elements.
As for actual weak points, the interweaving acoustic guitars of intro track Prelude To A Dark Age may be nice enough, but as is often the case with this sort of thing the piece ultimately feels quite unnecessary, especially as there is no obvious link to the following first song proper I – The Vile King. This track, and a few others like The Last Feast and even the aforementioned Dreadful Tears, also sees vocalist Randy Schaller occasionally adopting more of a semi-spoken or sometimes even whispered delivery which certainly isn’t where his bread is buttered and invariably ends up feeling a touch cheesy.
At the end of the day it seems that VOICE OF RUIN aren’t too fussed about ripping up the rulebook – which is absolutely fine because not every band should have to be – so realistically the best thing they could’ve done here is trim about ten minutes off Cold Epiphany. It’s a decent metal album with plenty of well-tested and well-executed ideas that were always going to land, but it is hard to shake a feeling of genericness that sets in pretty quickly and ultimately makes a 40-odd-minute runtime feel at least a couple of tracks too long. It’ll get your head banging and maybe even genuinely impress you with the occasional riff or solo, but if you’re looking for much more than that you will probably be left wanting.
Rating: 6/10
Cold Epiphany is set for release on December 1st via self-release.
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