Today we stray a little off the beaten rock music path to some chest thumping metal action!  Let me clarify right off the bat for all of you out there as nerdy as as I am: Storm King is NOT a reference to DOTA Characters.  Storm King is in fact a loud, double bass pounding, quick picking, metal quintet from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.  I am a fan of technical music, metal that makes you think about what the musicians are doing and how they are approaching a unique sound.  This album began with me thinking it was a good standard head banging metal album (don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this), but as I moved on into the album I started noticing some technical elements that excited me.

Angels of Enmity opens with “Keeper of the Shadows,”  which does a good job establishing Storm King’s overall style which is a blend between doom, technical, and melodic metal.  The vocal style established in this first track, which seems to be a mix of metal screaming and singing.  The vocals remind me of how Rob Zombie would sound if he decided to man up and scream a little more.

If you like fast picking intros, track two, “The Death Equation” is for you.  What’s a metal album worth if it doesn’t involve the word death anyway?  This track establishes that Adam Weston and Andy Kichi can more than hold their own when it comes to metal shredding, not to mention a rare bass solo.  Track three, “Miss Anthropy,” follows with more quick picking, but this time adds some extremely dissonant guitar that starts to give the feeling of anger and despair that is paired with most metal.  At this point in the album I started to realize how  consistent and quality the drumming was.

Track four, my favorite on the album, is an instrumental track that is sure to excite those of you out there that love tech death metal.  I especially was excite by the drumming of Tom D’Andrea on “A Constant Struggle Between Everything.”  Up to this point in the album I had the sneaking suspicion that he was a world class drummer, and this track made it clear.  From blast beats to fast cymbal work, D’Andrea single-handedly drives this track to greatness.  I say this not to belittle the guitarists who do a fine job of contrasting melody with rythmic metal (especially from 1:31 to 1:54), but to give credit where credit is due.  This track gives depth to the Storm King album like the title track of Lamb of God’s “Ashes of the Wake” did.

The next two tracks on the album revert to the initial established style with the exception that the vocals turn a little more guttural.  I enjoyed the change of vocal style in “Lack Luster” and “Wallowing” because I felt it stayed true to the take-no-prisoners ruthless metal roaring sound.  Listening to the final track “Angels of Enmity,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of Opeth.  This song shows a diversity of style with acoustic guitars and tribal drums that deserves recognition.  I mean, how often do you get to hear a metal song with bagpipes in the outro?

Overall this album is great for those out there that love a good head banging metal, and might spark some interest for some of you technical lovers.  The drumming of Tom D’Andrea is completely stand out on this album.  Drumophiles out there should give this album a listen even if they’re not a big fan of metal.  If Storm King can develop its emerging technical side, and keep its vocals true to the dark primal roares of the metal world, they will certainly have a chance to climb the ranks of national metal bands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe I'm kind of lazy and haven't figured out what to write here yet.

Storm King

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