 
Back in January Protest The Hero announced that
they were working on their fourth studio album
and that they had moved away from their label
and that the album would be fully crowdfunded
though Indiegogo and within 30hours the goal that
they needed to achieve to create the album was
smashed and by the end of the campaign $341,146
was raised which happened to be nearly triple
what they were looking for and this tells me two
things, first of all Protest The Hero are extremely
popular and have a hardcore generation of fans
and secondly it is not necessary to be signed
to a label if you can go through fan funded organisations
especially in this day and age where major labels
take all the money and try to take creative control
over bands music.
Just before Protest The Hero were going to hit
the studio to record their fourth studio album
‘Voilition’, founding member and drummer
Moe Carlson decided to leave the band to head
back into full time education and within no time
Protest The Hero recruited Lamb Of God drummer
Chris Adler to bang the drums in the studio and
have now gone on to announce that Mike Ieradi
is their new touring drummer.
The album opens with ‘Clarity’ and
from the start you can see that having Chris Adler
drum on the album was a great move as the man
is a powerful drummer and here he has stuck true
to Protest The Hero’s style but also put
his own twist on things. The guitars throughout
the song are fantastic as Luke Hoskin and Tim
Millar really show off how fast and technical
they can play whilst vocally frontman Rody Walker
has managed to progress once again with his vocals
sounding bigger and better than ever before as
he quickly shifts from melodic to screamo vocals
throughout the song.
‘Drumhead Trial’ is an extremely fast
number with never ending fast drum beats and guitar
riffs that come crash towards you at what feels
like 1000miles per hour in a relentless way, whilst
once again Rody Walker lays down some solid vocals
whilst Arif Mirabdolbaghi lays down the odd scream.
‘Tilting Against Windmills’ sticks
to the instrumental technicality which we have
come to expect from Protest The Hero but it is
the vocals from Rody walker which shine the most
throughout the song. ‘Yellow Teeth’
see Protest The Hero go down a big bouncy route
with some stand out baselines on offer from Arif
Mirabdolbaghi. ‘Mist’ is clearly all
about the instrumental work as the band really
go to town jamming away. With ‘Animal Bones’,
Protest The Hero go all out to create as much
noise as possible in a melodic way as the song
morphs from being a noisy number to a melodic
masterpiece and back in no time at all, whilst
album closer ‘Skies’ is so different
from what the band have ever done and leaves me
wanting more despite listening to over 50minutes
of quality music from the band within 'Volition'.
I have always classed Protest The Hero as one
of the best technical metal bands around and with
the release of ‘Volition’ I stick
by my claim as the album is fantastic and enjoyable
from start to finish as each and every song on
the album is as enjoyable as the last and this
makes it really hard to pick a stand out track
as each song stands out on its own for various
different reasons, and I really think that other
metal bands really do need to up their game if
they ever want to challenge the greatness that
Protest The Hero have created here.
5/5
Review by Trigger
|
