Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Showdown, The
Label: Century Media
Release: 2006
Rating: 3/5
It’s been a pretty metal-flavored year, where besides the new releases we also got the chance to grab and pick up stuff that would otherwise have slipped into oblivion. November is no exception, as the metal harvest is rounded out by the reissue of five-piece The Showdown’s A Chorus Of Obliteration. This likable Elizabethton mix of Christian messaging and heavy-metal sawing first saw the light of day back in 2004.
Metal is actually a perfectly fitting boiled-down label for what The Showdown serve up. A pretty neat stylistic blend of Southern rock, the fighting ethos of heavy metal and death-metalcore-style vocals makes for a wonderful invitation to all fans of As I Lay Dying, Shadow Fall, God Forbid and everyone else who got hyped about Metallica but eventually found the sound a tad too soft. Lyrically they deal with heroism, the shortness of existence and the struggle to survive. Melodically they take the listener on a wild carousel ride of refined, well-balanced slowing down and speeding up of the rhythm, seasoned with the steely sound of roaring guitars. You can feel the range of their genre-play from the very first riff. In fact, the casual listener gets, from the first song, A Monument Encased in Ash, and onward through tracks like Epic: A Chorus Of Obliteration and the rest of the offering, a peek at a whole palette of tried-and-tested musical approaches (the only break from the expected roar is the ballad Laid To Rest). With a feeling of having heard it all too many times, because we can quite fairly ask: what new can The Showdown even offer? Maybe a good time and a condensed tour through the historically and geographically varied underground of the metal genre for all those who’ve only just started searching and digging through the shelves of record shops, or for all those who are too lazy, too timid, or just too broke to get their hands on the original, foundational records The Showdown undoubtedly drew from in their refined journey from Iron Maiden-style melodics to today’s metalcore charging and everything in between? Through it all, they give the impression that, despite everything, they’re still loyal to the core values of heavy metal: fun, uncompromising attitude and directness. As musicians they certainly deliver, but when it comes to inventiveness, there’s still open field left for growth and evolution. Mostly for a bit more inventiveness and originality. A Chorus Of Obliteration is no musical breakthrough by any means, but sometimes that very predictability and the beauty of what’s already been said and heard can be rather soothing and harmless. For a band’s debut, this is a pretty decent and promising effort that doesn’t deserve excessive scolding. It’s only missing a pinch of that stuff that lifts the exceptional above the bare average, that separates the small from the big, the chosen from the forgotten and the winners from the losers. A pinch that turns the sound we hear into more than just thunder, blather and the empty promise of vacuum-packed farting into the void, and gives us an actual lightning strike. Maybe the upcoming album Temptation Come My Way will do better?
Lineup
David Bunton – vocals
Josh Childers – guitar, vocals
Travis Bailey – guitar
Eric Koruschak – bass
Andrew Hall – drums
Production
Bruce Fitzhugh
Track list
1. A Monument Encased in Ash (5.56)
2. Hell Can’t Stop Us Now (3.38)
3. Epic: A Chorus Of Obliteration (3:32)
4. From The Mouth Of Gath Comes Terror (6:30)
5. A Proclamation of Evil’s Fate (4:02)
6. Dagon Undone (The Reckoning) (4:33)
7. Iscariot (3:00)
8. Your Name Is Defeat (2:34)
9. Your Name Is Victory (3:02)
10. Laid To Rest (5:53)
11. Give Us This Day / Bonus Track (4:04)
