Band:	Armed For Apocalypse
Album:	Defeat
Style:	Sludge metal
Release date:	September 14, 2009
A review by:	Thryce

01. We Fell From The Bottom
02. The Demon Who Makes Trophies Of Men
03. Fists Of God
04. A Failure
05. Hero Complex
06. Torch Light Search For The Dead
07. A Collapse
08. You Are Alive When They Start To Eat You
09. Bonesaw [iTunes/Amazon bonus]

Sludge metal, with metalcore influences
Recorded: Heirloom Studios, USA 2008
Label: Ironclad Recordings/Metal Blade Records
Total Running Time: 37:31


It's hot, incredibly hot. You find yourself hitchhiking to the top of a pitch-black, desolate volcano. Hours away from anywhere remotely civilized, even far away from most living organisms, this sleeping volcano is dominating its lugubriously abandoned surroundings. A dark-shaded cloud of blackish dust and ashes is blocking most penetration of sunlight. You turn to your partner in crime, in casu your most loyal mp3 player, and decide to give the most played album another spin: Armed For Apocalypse - Defeat, the perfect soundtrack for your trip.

Armed For Apocalypse's debut album is laden with a sultry atmosphere from start to finish. It gets incredibly heavy on Defeat, by times even swampy, so much that it even gets close to intimidating. Defeat is not per se an awesome album, though it can in fact be seen as an awesome display of dark, abrasive power. What is more, Armed For Apocalypse is counting on several metalcore inclinations to generate even more abrasive power. Yes indeed, metalcore influences are appearing prominently. When sultry becomes syrupy. Though, there's no need in getting overly hostile. Both genres hybridize refreshingly well. Besides, the fusion is giving the sound a wickedly crazy effect. To give you an idea, this music wouldn't exactly be the type of thing Major Kong would listen to on his frantic bomb ride to absolute oblivion. But that's because he was already busy composing similar Armed For Apocalypse-like madness. The song structure isn't overly complex, yet full of intensity changes. Sometimes it's thick, slow and dense, sometimes it's up-tempo and with some grooving melodies. In either way, Defeat stays down-tuned and intense the whole trip long.

It's too soon to say if Armed For Apocalypse will obtain a first mover advantage in smuggling metalcore characteristics into the sludge metal genre or not. What Eryn Non Dae. did on Hydra Lernaia with (post-)hardcore, Armed For Apocalypse is doing with metalcore, one could say, only a tad more accessible and less discordant. Anyway, the chaotic kind of dark both albums are breathing remains similar. At the same time the grooves of Armed For Apocalypse are relying on a few certainties too, smuggling a hidden Down cover into the album.

The least you could say about Defeat is that it is quite the disturbing debut album. A release you can't particularly put your finger on after only one listen. The album isn't a masterpiece and I'm sure many (if not most) people will turn their back on Armed For Apocalypse (especially if they don't keep "We Fell From The Bottom" and "A Failure" for the end). That's why the person in the intro was all alone.