Reaper – Rebirth Of Chaos
Self-Released
Release Date: 29/10/2021
Running Time: 48:20
Review by Beth Jones
10/10
I love success stories. Seeing other people hitting that sweet spot where they find something they love, and it brings joy into their lives. There’s not enough joy in the world right now, so we should always appreciate it when it happens. And when it happens to someone who you know personally, it makes it even sweeter. Reaper, and in particular, front man Dan Moran, are pretty high up on my list of ‘People who are fucking awesome’, and so when they do something new, and it’s superb, it fills me with a lot of joy. Their latest album, “Rebirth Of Chaos” was released at the end of October, and it’s a shining example of what hard work, dedication, and passion for their art looks like. It’s a reimagining of their 2018 album “Birth Of Chaos”, which troubled the band at the time of release, for many reasons. And with this rebirth, Reaper have shown that they’re beginning to mature, like a fine wine.
The album starts with ‘Possessor Of Evil’, opening with a solo guitar melody, then launching into furious classic Thrash, which serves as a perfect wake-up call. The vocal work of frontman Dan Moran is massive, with crisp clean vocals, and superb growling Thrash tones, which add a sense of urgency and punch to the delivery, which is echoed by the powerful rhythms and riffs provided by the rest of the band. A great way to start an album.
Power and punch are the name of the game throughout this album really. It’s exciting and in your face throughout, and oozes talent and skill. Reaper never shy away from trying things and pushing boundaries either, dabbling with Groove and Progressive sounds and ideas all the time. It’s scarily exciting.
A perfect example of this is ‘Entropy’. Blistering Progressive Thrash, that’s laden with heavy riffs, and thunderous bass, along with machine gun drumming, and Dan’s superb vocals. It feels like that point when you go down the first drop on a rollercoaster – exhilarating and daring. It’s also got some properly sexy guitar solos, too. Just a big old pot of everything epic really.
It’s almost impossible to pick stand out tracks from this album, because they’re all so good, but ‘Wings Of Darkness’ is a blinder! This opens with a spoken introduction, then drops into heavy and dark riffs, akin to Sabbath, just with more anger about them. Progressing into more classic Thrash realms, this piece demonstrates the sheer brilliance of every single musician in Reaper, and I will challenge anyone not to move to this tune, because personally I don’t think it’s possible. And then, just when you think it can’t ramp up anymore, it does. The ‘bloody hell!!’ scale of all things good, that lives inside my head, is going off the chart with this tune, I can tell you!
The penultimate album track, ‘Sixth Circle Of Hell’ is a superb track. It starts off with moody acoustic guitar, joined by a sumptuous lead guitar solo, which has smacks of Pink Floyd about it. From there, the track explodes into (brilliantly mixed) ‘in your face’ thrash, and I bloody love it! And that leads into a 6 minute Herculean bucket of everything, ‘The Way Of Shinobi’, to close out the album. This has got blistering Thrash, Oozing prog, and some quite frankly brilliant guitar work towards the end.
Get your faces into this trough bucket of epic NOW, everyone!! You need this in your life, and if you don’t think you do, then you are wrong. Seriously ludicrous how good these guys are.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Possessor of Evil
02. Wartorn
03. World at Redemption
04. The Crypt
05. Entropy
06. Wings of Darkness
07. Checkmate
08. Area 51
09. Sixth Circle of Hell
10. The Way of the Shinobi
LINE-UP:
Daniel Moran – Vocals/ Guitar
Anthony Dalton – Guitar/ Backing Vocals
Kayne Watson – Bass/ Backing Vocals
James McDermott – Drums
LINKS:
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