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Angry Metal GuyThe Final Witness – Beneath the Altar Review
By Angry Metal Guy
By: Nameless_n00b_607
In a genre long since matured, a common way to avoid retreads is to combine multiple subgenres.1 Contemporary thrash in particular is difficult to get right without the proper guitar assault required to break necks. Hence, many opt to go for one of its offshoots instead. One newcomer looking to explore the avenue of genre blending is The Final Witness, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Josh Henderson. Debut Beneath the Altar promises to deliver death and thrash in progressive form to the unwashed masses. I dove into Beneath the Altar with caution, having seen how often this combination of terms gets misused, but hoping The Final Witness would fulfill its promise.
Inspired guitar work and appropriate variety are the main strengths of The Final Witness. The majority of Beneath the Altar involves two core components: progressive thrash (“Coronation,” “The Blood”) and death/thrash (“Sanctum of the Holy”). Plentiful melodic leads further color the album, with “Testimony” even evoking the Gothenburg sound. Lastly, quieter semi-acoustic passages bridge these individual pieces together with varied levels of success. The compositions are vivid and frenetic, alternating between traditional breakneck drumming and rhythmic trickery. Henderson’s distorted vocals lack a bit of thrash attitude, but they do a fine job of punctuating the compositions with barks and snarls. Beneath the Altar’s best moments take inspiration from Coroner and Vader, and I wish those moments were much more frequent, because the sound leans a bit too close towards the groove school of guitar chugging on occasion (“Negative World,” “Principalities”). Nevertheless, the foundation of the album holds, and Henderson’s performances are impressive.
Beneath the Altar’s experimental side comes at the expense of its strengths. On top of the album’s bread and butter, most tracks differentiate themselves with eccentricities. For example, the title track’s electronic break with an almost hip-hop-like beat is memorable and surprisingly well-made, but it doesn’t exactly fit. “Testimony” ends with a dramatic organ layer that could sound excellent if the mix didn’t turn it into an ear-piercing inconvenience. Many of these one-off gimmicks are fun, but they are either misused or discarded before leaving an impact. Worse, they are a distraction. Beneath the Altar really shines when exploring the rhythmic and melodic sides of death/thrash. Diverging from this path trades depth for breadth; a tighter track like “Sanctum of the Holy” proves that The Final Witness would only benefit from holding onto a theme for longer.
The disparate ideas of Beneath the Altar are greater than the sum of their parts. Its foundational pillars work wonders individually, but interact too infrequently, and one-off experimental touches are fun but out of place. The somber semi-acoustic parts—while well done—hinder song flow when utilized too frequently (“Principalities”) and blend together after multiple listens. Good ideas feel haphazardly assembled. The foregoing is exacerbated by its production, overseen by Jason Wisdom of Becoming the Archetype. The sound is both sterile and rough, with Wisdom prioritizing guitars over vocals and drums—both of which are loud and distracting. Its qualities conjure a strange illusion of metalcore adjacency, further contributing to the album’s incoherent identity. All that being said, I don’t mind listening to Beneath the Altar again. There’s a lot to like, and a brief 36-minute runtime makes sure the record doesn’t overstay its welcome. Yet I feel more compelled to revisit individual parts of songs rather than any particular song in full.
Beneath the Altar is an interesting but unfocused prototype. Getting a solo project this far is already respectable, but I reckon Mr. Henderson is still capable of much more. With more coherent composition and a unified vision, the ideas on this record could form a powerful message. There are exciting bits and pieces here to digest, even if they don’t necessarily form a cohesive whole, and the result is that Beneath the Altar feels like a starting point for better things to come. But for the time being, The Final Witness is still trying to find its sound—and I find myself craving some Coroner instead.
Rating: Mixed
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s CBR MP3
Label: Rottweiler Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Release Date: August 15th, 2025
#25 #2025 #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #BecomingTheArchetype #BeneathTheAltar #Coroner #DeathThrash #ProgressiveThrashMetal #Review #RottweilerRecords #TheFinalWitness #ThrashMetal #Vader
Shardik MediaKansas core-ists Tundra present a new album, Eternal. Review at FFR, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2025/04/03/tundra-eternal-rottweiler-2025/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #deathmetal #Kansas #RottweilerRecords #Tundra #Topeka #metalcore #deathcore
Diatheke – …And the Word Was God Review
By Killjoy
It’s no secret that many of us here at Angry Metal Guy share an outsized fascination with progressive death metal. It has a seemingly infinite capacity for pathos and logos to raise one another to otherwise unreachable heights. It can also assume wildly different forms from artist to artist, which appeals to those who are always looking for something fresh and unexpected. This is what led me to Diatheke,1 from Dallas, Texas, and their debut …And the Word Was God. As a Christian group, their album’s concept is biblical, both literally and figuratively, representing the first moments of the universe’s existence through the final days of humanity. The scope of this concept is about as enormous as they come, but if any genre can pull it off, it would be progressive death.
It, then, caused me considerable consternation to discover that Diatheke married their prog death with metalcore. To be clear, I wouldn’t disparage something solely for having metalcore influence, but here the two styles clash hard. The musical compositions, which reach for—while never quite attaining—the dramatic, theatrical grandeur of Ne Obliviscaris, are often buried like the wicked during the Great Flood by a deluge of scalding screams, gruff growls, and cloying clean vocals. Elements of melodic death metal and deathcore attempt to bridge the gap between the two aesthetics with some success, but they tend to devolve into chugging breakdowns peppered with double bass. Congruous unions of the fundamentally opposite objectives of prog and metalcore might exist somewhere, but this is not one of them.
It doesn’t help that …And the Word Was God mainly inherited the less desirable attributes of both its parent genres. It has some of progressive death’s intricacy but little of its overarching cohesion. Diatheke discharges a slew of ideas that are rarely borne to fruition, yielding song fragments that are stuck together haphazardly. “The Coronation” opens with a regal guitar and synth melody befitting of the song’s title, only to inexplicably rip it away for a monotonous growled verse atop nondescript riffs. Many other transitions are navigated in like manner with the grace and subtlety of a snowplow. Things might have been salvageable if more of the individual components commanded the hooky sensibilities of metalcore but, aside from a chorus in “The Coronation” and a resurfacing guitar line in “The Creation,” there are no recurring features to cling to for memorability across the hour runtime.
These fundamental flaws all but smother the bright spots scattered throughout …And the Word Was God. There are some genuinely compelling moments—like the back-to-back guitar and bass solos in “The Redeemer”—but in their isolation, they wither like branches without a vine. Frustratingly, most of the instrumentation, which ranges from inoffensive to decent, is muddied by the vocals. Three band members (Peter Watson, John Wesley, and Michael Osborn) are credited with vocals, though the problem isn’t too many cooks in the kitchen so much as the cooks preparing the wrong order. The screams that permeate …And the Word Was God sound out of place in this type of music, distracting and detracting from any emotion the listener might have otherwise gleaned. Conversely, the singing in the intro of “The Promise” and the conclusion of “The Creator” offer glimpses of how impassioned the album could have been with a more befitting vocal approach.
In the end, …And the Word Was God doesn’t have enough redeeming qualities to overcome its glaring macro and micro issues. It’s likely too disjointed to appeal to the progressive death crowd and not immediate enough to please metalcore enthusiasts. While there are worse sins for a young band than struggling to rein in their ambitions, it’s difficult to enjoy something this unfocused and self-conflicting. But with youth comes the inherent potential for growth if Diatheke can concentrate their efforts and attention. There is an audience out there for them; they just have to pick one.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Rottweiler Records
Websites: diathekerr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/diathekemusic
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025
#AndTheWordWasGod #15 #2025 #AmericanMetal #Diatheke #Mar25 #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #NeObliviscaris #ProgressiveDeath #Review #Reviews #RottweilerRecords
Tyraels Ascension – Hell Walker Review
By GardensTale
We’ve had a pretty wide variety in album-complementing media over the years. I’ve personally dealt with a graphic novel where all the text was the lyrics of the album, and an album where every track got a music video which combined into a short film. More than a few bands have released novellas to accompany the music, such as Rush and Coheed and Cambria. But this is the first time I’ve run into a band releasing a video game counterpart to their new record.1 Tyraels Ascension has big plans for their debut Hell Walker,2 and one of those plans is this game, to be released in parallel on Steam. I haven’t played the game, so I cannot in good faith review it,3 so we shall focus on the music instead.
Tyraels Ascension tread that fine line between metalcore and melodic death metal where bands like Darkest Hour operate. The focus is entirely on the vocals and the twin guitars, and the latter are easily the best part of the album. Thrashy aggression spews forth chug-laden riffs that get the blood pumping, only for pathos to take over when soaring leads yank the heartstrings. It’s similar to the formula that once made In Flames great, but the execution on Hell Walker elevates the album above the masses. “Holy Fire” is a great example, starting with a rapid-fire assault and gradually mixing in more melodic elements and harmonies to excellent dynamic effect. Even the Spanish guitar used here and there is tasteful and doesn’t feel too out of place, and the twin leads that close out “Inferno” are phenomenal. The guitarwork is invigorating and energetic in all the right ways, and almost makes up for everything else.
Because there’s not a whole lot to love about everything else. The main vocals are acceptable at least, a genre-standard meathead roar straight out of knucklehead hardcore, but any and all deviations from this drop almost immediately into an abyss of cringe. Thankfully, this is not too frequent altogether, but “The Dead Lights” turns me off almost immediately with the weepy woe-is-me cleans, and “Architect” is even worse, with a 20-second bridge ruining the entire song like a squirming insect in the middle of your dinner. These cleans are so off-key as to feel entirely amateur too, and they are as unwanted as they are poorly executed. Most of the tracks remain blissfully free of this blight, but it triggers an immediate and intense dislike when even a hint of it occurs.
And sweet Jesus, what did they do to the production? Hell Walker is a classic case of ‘the better your equipment, the worse it sounds.’ This is predominantly because of the almost constant clipping, which is more prevalent and aggravating than anything I’ve heard since Akoma back in 2017. Don’t let the DR score fool you: the interlude and outro pull the average up considerably, with the rest of the tracks landing a 3 or 4. The mix manages to pull apart the bricks enough to keep the wall from sounding like mush, but the drums are as impactful as a distant slap on wet cardboard and I often strain to hear the bass at all.
It’s really a shame, since there’s plenty of promise to Tyraels Ascension, provided a morsel of the -core does not give you anaphylaxis. It’s lyrically self-indulgent, but not annoyingly so. The songwriting is absolutely solid and I cannot stress enough how good the guitars are. But they really are doing all the work in pulling the album up from production hell and vocal choices that are questionable at best. If the band takes whatever effort went into the video game and puts it into fixing those issues, this band might put out something worthwhile in the future. This one is at best a commute spin or two, provided you’re super hungry for some great guitar work and able to look past the flaws.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Rottweiler Records
Websites: tyraelsascension.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/TyraelsAscension
Releases Worldwide: August 2nd, 2024
#25 #2024 #Akoma #AmericanMetal #Aug24 #CoheedAndCambria #DarkestHour #HellWalker #InFlames #IronMaiden #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #Review #Reviews #RottweilerRecords #Rush #TyraelsAscension
The debut album from metal instigators Tyraels Ascension is Hell Walker. Review at FFMB, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2024/07/25/tyraels-ascension-hell-walker-rottweiler-2024/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #deathmetal #TyraelsAscension #RottweilerRecords #Washington #hardcore #Olympia
South Carolina slamdeath band Cleansing Of The Temple are ready to release their debut long-player, The Devil Knows My Name. Review at FFMB, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2024/07/09/cleansing-of-the-temple-the-devil-knows-my-name-rottweiler-2024/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #deathmetal #CleansingOfTheTemple #RottweilerRecords #SouthCarolina #deathcore #slamdeath
