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Rating: The Sanctity... Young, promising, and recommended by none other than the Mustache (Dave Mustaine, ed.).
Road to Bloodshed is a truly good debut album, nothing more and nothing less, if related to the sudden boom of success of the four.
The quartet from Asheville offers a sound strongly inspired by 80s Thrash, particularly the "Slayer-esque" and "Megadeth-like" one, but reinterpreted in a "modern" key. Let me explain. In Road to Bloodshed, there are often metalcore rhythm passages, emo-like choruses (see Killswitch Engage and early Trivium) that are so fashionable now, and there's also a touch of Swedish melodic Death Metal in the style of In Flames and Arch Enemy.
Having analyzed the form, let’s move on to the content, that is, the quality of the songs. There isn't a great compositional variety since almost all the songs maintain the same structure. In my very humble opinion, the standout tracks are undoubtedly Beneath the Machine, Billy Seals, and The Shape of Things; descending are to note the title-track, Brotherhood of Destruction, Flatline, and Zeppo (mainly for its incredibly catchy chorus). The other tracks, to be honest, remain somewhat anonymous in this succession of twelve similar tracks.
The PROS of this album are the explosive and breathtaking riffs of the guitar duo MacEachern-Childress (see Flatline and Beneath the Machine), the support work of the rhythm pair Anderson-London (particularly visible in The Shape of Things), and above all, the sumptuous production by Jason Suecof, able to make perfectly distinct and audible the sounds of the four instruments between them and to add to the work, with great taste, string motifs, and choirs. The CONS are the aforementioned excessive similarity of the songs and, in my opinion, MacEachern's singing (which goes from a voice that, to me, seems a fusion between the rough voice of uncle Lemmy to the hoarse roar of Flynn from Machine Head to some sometimes embarrassing falsettos) that, in the long run, can become tiring. The last thing to mention is my doubt, not certainty because they are probably simple coincidences, of semi-plagiarism in some songs: the atmosphere of Zeppo resembles too much that of Anthem (We Are the Fire) by Trivium, a small part of its riff to that of Master of Puppets, while the intro of Beloved Killer recalls that of Burn It Down by Avenged Sevenfold.
To be avoided by purists, to be at least listened to by the curious and those more open to new Metal trends.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Beneath the Machine (03:19)
Start the needle up again as I crawl to the chair
Anticipate the pain
Feel the charge in the air, sick fascination
Can't wash away this alteration
Beneath the machine
Constant noise inside my head
Trading blood for ink, into torture I will sink
Beneath the machine again
Sometimes a picture to make heads turn
Sometimes a badge of honor earned
Always a reminder of pain endured
Never a way to say these words
Beneath the machine
Constant noise inside my head
Trading blood for ink, into torture I will sink
Beneath the machine again
Just remember
It's all for time
By skin be judged, with my skin define
Beneath the machine
Constant noise inside my head
Trading blood for ink, into torture I will sink
Beneath the machine again
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