Pride of the Wicked

Christian metalcore? Well, not explicitly, at least in the sense that the dude from Nazareth doesn't actually show up by name in this young band's lyrics, but...yeah, that's basically what the second album by War of Ages amounts to. Singer/songwriter Leroy Hamp's lyrics stress positivity in the face of adversity; songs like "Strength Within" and "Absence of Fear" almost sound like exhortations from Dr. Phil McGraw set to unison guitar riffs and blastbeat drumming. So big points for going against the tide in terms of the music's usual lyrical preoccupations, but the fundamental problem of Pride of the Wicked is that these ten songs are thuddingly, depressingly average, both in the sense that War of Ages add nothing whatsoever new to the metalcore genre and that the actual sound of the record varies so little from song to song that it seems the guitarists never even changed the settings on their amps between takes. Unfortunately, Pride of the Wicked shows that even in metalcore, good intentions are rarely enough by themselves.