Woe Of Tyrants – Threnody – Review

Release Date: April 13th, 2010
Record Label: Metal Blade Records
Genre: Deathcore

Beauty lies within the melody, is the best way to describe Woe of Tyrants who’s latest effort Threnody drops April 13th on Metal Blade Records. The effort proves once again that intricate fretwork is more devastating than chugs, but don’t tell that to deathcore freaks. Ten tracks with fretwork slicing away for a little over forty minutes will leave you in need of some band-aids as it dices your mind.

From the start you get the feel of a guitar oriented album, and it just shreds away while the vocals can sometimes feel awkwardly placed atop the guitar driven melodies. The drums are double bass heavy pounding through the speakers. The song that really get the album moving along is “Venom Eye,” the song seems to mend together as a whole with the vocals feeling more fitting and everything feeling smoother than the tracks prior. From there on it is smooth sailing, with technical mind bending riffs. There is tons of talent here but I wish I could here some more of the drums outside of the near constant double bass, but again this album is certainly guitar driven. As Woe of Tyrants continues to riff the night away, an easy comparison for their sound would be to The Faceless, constant shredding and double bass with melodies and chilling vocals.

The title tracks up the ante with a clean guitar passage before picking up the pace and drilling the riff into your skull. The riffing is spectacular but as far as the complete package I don’t know if it is all there just yet. I wish the mix was altered slightly to bring out the drums more and create more balance, but the album is solid and the ferocious fret work makes it well worth picking up. All I am saying is there is room for improvement, trimming the fat like “The Venus Orbit,” a three and half minute interlude, it would work if it went somewhere but it doesn’t. The most complete track to me that really contains everything you would want them to build on is the closer “Descendit Ad Inferos.”

At the end of the day, if you enjoy solid guitar work and melodic death metal this album will fit into your rotation with ease. It really is a well constructed effort that only needed a few minor tweaks to be unanimously gold. Woe of Tyrants has continued to progress forward with each release, which is something that commands respect. I hope I can say the same the next album, because it would only be that much better and Threnody is already great. ~James Terry

Score: 4.25/5

Track Listing:
1. Tetelestai
2. Creatures of the Mire
3. Venom Eye (feat. Dustie Waring of Between The Buried And Me)
4. Tempting the Wretch
5. Threnody
6. Bloodsmear
7. The Venus Orbit
8. Lightning Over Atlantis
9. Singing Surrender
10. Descendit Ad Inferos (The Harrowing of Hell)