Weapon - From the Devil's Tomb

Weapon - From the Devil's Tomb
Year - 2010
Label - The Ajna Offensive
Myspace

Canada's Weapon was my discovery of last year and a band that I've become a little obsessed with. After a long time, a relatively young band with just their second album made me want to dig into their back catalogue and own everything they've released so far.

From the Devil's Tomb is a stunning work of extreme metal. The band mix and match black, death, thrash and classic heavy metal influences with Eastern melodies and some superbly thought out solos. Right from the opening few notes of the title song I knew I was in for something a bit special. Starting with a vaguely Eastern sounding melody, the band excels at slowly building momentum as the opening melody gives way to a mid paced black metal sound before the band comes at you all guns blazing with hyper blasting black metal while always keeping the emphasis on melody and clarity before going into a mid paced The Chasm like section and then effortlessly shifting between tempos and styles. The dynamics of the bands songwriting is what makes this album special. Take something like Bested in Surplice and Violet Stole with its opening death metal riffing giving way to a quieter section before the song comes together to rip your head off. It's a bit pointless to talk about every song here because the quality of music on offer is consistently high. Still, Lefthandpathyoga is a superb and mellow instrumental placed bang in the middle of the album that gives the listener some sense of relief from the blasting. Furor Divinus has an opening riff that most thrash bands would kill for and a supremely rabid vocal performance from Vetis Monarch. Vorter -11724 is a grinding mid tempo beast. The Inner Wolf has a slow build up before mutating into probably the most aggressive song on this album and Trishul is just a fantastic song that mixes death, black, thrash and a superb classic heavy metal solo to jaw dropping effect.

It's quite apparent after having listened to this album for the better part of last year that Weapon are above everything else, fantastic song writers. Every single riff on this album is there for a reason. The songwriting is incredibly well thought out whether in building grooves, melodies or simply blasting through for maximum effect. Weapon understand the need for changing things up. Monarch and Apostle VIII's guitar playing is of a very high standard but they're also backed up by a rhythm section that is very inventive. You won't find the usual black-death song writing cliches here or a drummer and bass player who are content to follow the guitars and stay in the background. The one band that constantly comes to mind when listening to Weapon is The Chasm, particularly around the time of Deathcult for Eternity. There really isn't a lot that's musically similar between the two bands but Weapon are on the same path of completely original extreme metal that The Chasm were on in the late 90s. Music that gets your chest pounding, fists flailing and head bobbing up and down like you've lost all motor control of your neck. Also, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, Weapon and The Chasm are both masters of the riff.

From the Devil's Tomb is essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in the extreme metal side of things and the band deserves all the support it can get.