A few years ago the mighty Megadeth found themselves in New Zealand at the head of a day-long festival which brought some metal bands to Aotearoa for the very first time. Although I wasn’t enamoured with some of these (I don’t care what anyone says – it was a much better idea to grab a beer than to watch Parkway Drive), I was mightily impressed with the likes of Katatonia and 3 Inches of Blood but I already knew albums from these guys before going to the gig. The one band that day that really impressed me that I had never heard of before, was We Came As Romans with a twin vocal attack and an attitude that really hit home. They were there for real, and tore it up.
This is their third album, and I was intrigued to see how they had grown in the intervening time, and whether that passion was coming through into the studio. Well, the one thing I know for sure having listened to this a few times is that they need to come back to the land of the long white cloud! The intensity is palpable, this just doesn’t come across as a studio album. It just doesn’t belong in the sanity of a home environment, but rather this needs to be cut loose and be out there creating a mosh as this is music to flail around to, music that literally makes the listener want to bounce up and down just by playing it. Play it at the volume it deserves and there is a risk that the speakers will vibrate off the walls.
Producer John Feldmann has managed to capture a wild beast and has finessed it without losing any of the edge that make them such a powerful act. There are plenty of melodies, loads of hooks, twin vocals, this is the complete package. This deserves to be rated as one of the top metal albums, whatever sub genre, of the year.
