Protest The Hero - Volition

♫ Well there was an undeniable time where I simply referred to new music as: "meh… I've heard all this before" or why should I bother even trying when someone already recorded a better version of it. So I explored rather the past as discovering new music. To be honest, now I realize I wasn’t quite ready for it. I've known PTH for quite some time but didn't give damn about it… reason explained in the paragraph above.

♫ I consider Volition their best effort, I had listened to it like zillion times and it still keeps me shaking till this day. The sonic speeding, the Nintendo sounding guitars, clean emotional yet aggressive singing style with occasional growl, sick drumming style and the virtuosic guitar tapping. Altogether creating maybe not so inventional sounding piece as it had been years before but it took some time for the whole band to grow into this. Not to mention the sound and production might be the perfect fit for the band and their style. It just feels and sounds right. This effort came out the best sounding of their 4 albums released till this day. PTH combines the sonic elements of hard core, metal core, math metal, heavy metal, djent to a very unique degree. It goes for me as the best album so far I heard in the last 5 years. Producer Cameron McLellan contributed also heavily alongside his obvious duties by performing several instruments on the album and also being active as composer, which also became a huge factor. ♫ To be honest my obsession with is album became so big that I not only bought the digipack version of the album but also ordered the digital book with transcribed guitar parts and made a t-shirt with the limited edition album cover.

Here goes the track by track review:

* 1. Clarity - first track of the album which I adored. It has the most memorable intro riff from whole album and as a concept it's just well-balanced in its dynamics, full of mood changes and great story telling.

* 2. Drumhead Trial - Love the tight beat in the intro, the sonic Nintendo like sounding guitars are most audible here :).

* 3. Tilting Against Windmills

* 4. Without Prejudice

* 5. Yellow teeth - double bass drum beat throughout the whole song with grooving rhythm for head banging and builds up very nicely to the end.

* 6. Plato's Tripartite - one of the mellowest songs on here, with nice trade off with female vocals in the end. Great melodic sing a long chorus.

* 7. A Life Embossed - exact opposite of number six, the thin air, aggressive vocals, different changes of moods, lot of political views.

* 8. Mist - A tribute / ode to one of the bands favorite places to play - New Found Land, mellowest song and most radio-friendly one on the album.

* 9. Underbite - Lyrics tell a parody to all the bands playing out of nostalgia and posers. Most hardcore influenced song on the album.

* 10.Animal Bones - Might be considered a filler on the album if we had to pick one but very strong song though.

* 11. Skies - Albums closer with every ingredients needed, dramatic build up till the end. A definite statement at the end.