Artist: Heathen
Label: Mascot Records
Release: 2010
Duration: 68:28
Rating: 4.5/5
Heathen – a band that joined the ranks of the best-known thrash metal acts when the Bay Area scene broke out in the mid-eighties – are true slowpokes. Their contemporaries from back then, after the revival of the movement, as heralded by the “Thrash Of The TItans” festival in 2001, had already put out comeback albums, starting with Exodus, then Death Angel and even Forbidden – a band that’s pretty much Heathen’s closest thrash metal twin in style.
The albums “Breaking The Silence” and, right after it, “Victims Of Deception” are classic thrash metal reading material, and if an average metalhead who takes themself seriously doesn’t know Heathen and both of those records today, something has to be seriously wrong. Even though the guys officially got back together at that very festival, quite a pile of years passed before they actually got a new studio album together. Exactly 19 years went by since “Victims Of Deception”. So here, at last, is the third Heathen studio album, “The Evolution Of Chaos”.
No beating around the bush: this is an album you can instantly label the “Victims Of Deception of the 21st century.” Which in itself means “The Evolution Of Chaos” counts as one of the best releases on the metal scene that 2010 had to offer. If you trust the author of this piece and his “blabbering” up to this sentence, then reading the rest of the review is totally pointless. Just go and get your own copy of this excellent album right now.
In the huge lineup carousel that has spun since Heathen got back together and up to 2010, you could spot plenty of names, but the core of the band, made up of vocalist David White, guitarist Lee Altus and drummer Darren Minter, stayed stable throughout. Still, the stability needed to record an album only arrived with bassist Jon Torres (Angel Witch, Laaz Rockit, Ulysses Syren) in 2004 and guitarist Kragen Lum (Prototype) in 2007. But we can’t stay completely indifferent here. In 2005 a demo came out with three brand-new songs, Dying Season, Arrows Of Agony and Empty Nothingness. Heathen kept all three for the new album too, though Empty Nothingness, in line with how the song developed further, was sensibly retitled Silent Nothingness.
Sure, Heathen are a byword for laziness when it comes to putting out studio albums, but on the flip side the rule fully applies to them that whatever they do manage to release hits masterpiece level, and “The Evolution Of Chaos” is no exception whatsoever.
The main songwriter is Lee Altus, and the chemistry between him and Lum works flawlessly. That’s why Heathen have kept that recognizable character of technically progressive polish, which offers a distinctive and unique combination of the motivic variety of technically demanding songs and the unbridled spraying of toxic napalm aggression from an inexhaustible thrash metal rage. Honestly, the best thing thrash metal can offer. Not only did we get 10 new songs with the authentic definition of a markedly recognizable Bay Area riff guide, with a clear mutual disjunction that breathes a sculpted thrash metal character into every single one of them, but the Altus/Lum tandem is a real driving engine that, with the relentless energy of its riff-thrashing, stuns above all with the brilliance of its solo excursions. With the available space carefully seasoned with ornaments of double guitar harmonies in thirds, the two guitarists at times seem like they’re stuck in a time machine, because the weaving and trading of multi-part solos between them just doesn’t seem to end. They create this top-notch atmosphere in the six-minute instrumental closing section of the more than 11-minute mini-EP No Stone Unturned. That the solo excursions on this album carry just as much weight as the riffs, and David White’s vocal delivery too, Heathen announce right with the intro itself, as well as the opening motif of the opener Dying Season. If you’re a fan of endless guitar wizardry and breakneck solos that never seem to end and that instantly floor you with a mix of speed, precision and constant creative insight, then this is an album you’ll love straight away, no questions asked. Heathen belong to the Bay Area movement. They stay true to their roots.
David White remains a vocalist with an exceptional range. He sounds resolute, uncompromising in the verses, with a touch of disillusion in his voice, and a plasma of rage in the verses is his middle name. He constantly combines a polished falsetto with a dose of guttural grit. In fact, White is a lot more convincing, even more varied in how he strings together emotions, than on the first two Heathen albums.
This album also features guest spots by some interesting musicians. It’s not really surprising that Altus’s Exodus colleagues Gary Holt (a split solo in the song Control By Chaos) and vocalist Rob Dukes ended up on the album, in A Hero’s Welcome. The band didn’t forget guitarist Terry Lauderdale either. The former member got room for a solo in Arrows Of Agony. But the most interesting name among the guests this time goes to the bass slot. That’s Steve DiGiorgio (Death, Sadus,…) on fretless bass, whose trademark playing further deepens the highly vibrant shifting of moods in the epic No Stone Unturned.
The only mild misstep on “The EVolution Of Chaos” is the inclusion of the predictable and riff-wise trivial A Hero’s Welcome. Heathen are (only) Americans after all, so some of you might get a sugar rush when you run into this song’s lyrics in particular. Dumb patriotism, the kind you just can’t avoid when you run into Uncle Sam. Anyway. Even on this track the band proves its exceptional technical polish, and it wins the poker hand of aces once again in the instrumental part and in laying out new, vivid sonic landscapes with the help of the Altus/Lum guitar duo.
Anyway, this is an album that will take your breath away and enchant you with its authenticity and uniqueness! It’s hellishly wound up, as thrash metal demands, and at the same time, thanks to its technical polish, appealing to music gourmets, because it combines the outstanding partnership of the quintet that created it. The production sounds toxically alive, as if Heathen were playing a gig in the studio. This album stands out in the sea of today’s releases on the metal scene, especially because every one of the songs has a clearly crafted character, based on Heathen’s embodied mastery of building chiseled, insightful guitar phrases, which the band tops off with highly compatible arrangement seasoning. You can feel that the ideas came about years apart, which is why their character is that much more defined and prominent. “The Evolution Of Chaos” is an album that will take your breath away and enchant you with its authenticity and uniqueness. It’s the type of CD that, once you hit “play,” you’ll have a hard time ever prying out of your CD player again! Let’s just hope we won’t have to wait another 19 years for the next Hetahen album.
Lineup
David White – vocals
Lee Altus – guitar
Kragen Lum – guitar
Jon Torres – bass guitar
Darren Minter – drums
Production
Juan Urteaga & Heathen
Tracklist
1. Intro (1:21)
2. Dying Season (5:41)
3. Control by Chaos (7:09)
4. No Stone Unturned (11:10)
5. Arrows of Agony (6:40)
6. Fade Away (5:45)
7. A Hero’s Welcome (6:52)
8. Undone (6:42)
9. Bloodkult (4:31)
10. Red Tears of Disgrace (5:52)
11. Silent Nothingness (6:51)
