01. Conspire To Deceive
02. Detonate
03. Our Channel To The Darkness
04. Cruel Perception
05. What We Become
06. This Curse Of Silence
07. March Of The Unheard
08. Forever Astray
09. Between Directions
10. A Death That Becomes Us
11. The Burning Point
12. Coda
13. Not Yet Broken [bonus]
14. Path Of Fierce Resistance [bonus]
15. The Defiant One [bonus]
16. Become Surrender [bonus]

The halo over our demise. 

Capturing the spirit and sound of 90s melodeath, The Halo Effect have ironically been a breath of fresh air despite treading old ground. Following up the Metal Storm Award-winning debut Days Of The Lost, the band set themselves a tough task, one that they pass in enjoyable fashion; while the prior album was less consistent but had several highlights, the band have produced a more consistent album with no fewer highlights for listeners to sink their ears into. 

Amassing a sizeable following, The Halo Effect have found success via the rather ingenious route of giving the audience what they want, namely, classic In Flames; given the band comprise many of the members of said band from that period, it's no surprise that this is something they do this very well. The likes of "Detonate" and "March Of The Unheard" sound like they could have been material written for Colony, likening their appeal to lost tracks from around that period. Managing to walk the fine line between taking inspiration from their past work and not merely regurgitating their past glories, March Of The Unheard stands on its own merits, thanks to strong cuts like "A Death That Becomes Us". 

While it would be easy to label the band as mere torchbearers of In Flames's past, The Halo Effect manage to carve out enough of an identity of their own (no mean feat when each member was, at one point, a member of said band), largely helped by Stanne's vocal performance, one that doesn't sound like having put tracing paper on Whoracle. This is evident on tracks like "Between Directions", which see Stanne mirror that internal division with an emotive performance that takes advantage of his vocal range. 

Where listeners may not enjoy March Of The Unheard so much, is that it is an album that focuses on the past, rather than the future; namely, it doesn't offer any evolution of an already well established genre and sound. For listeners looking for something novel or new (or your name is Anders Fridén), then you are unlikely to find much to excite you here, given it treads much the same ground well trampled already. 

Where you could be forgiven for thinking Days Of The Lost was the unlikely act of catching of lightning in a bottle, the band manage to make lightning strike twice and capture it once again, harnessing this into a much more rounded album than before.

Performance:	8
Songwriting:	8
Originality:	3
Production:	8