Demon Hunter - War & Peace

I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I have seen the sentiment echoed on the online metal discussion sphere (and I’m possibly also thinking of my own thoughts as well), that Demon Hunter are basically just the Christian Five Finger Death Punch, at least lately. And I don’t know why, but I do feel the need to address/debunk this before talking about their double release here this year, mainly because it was when Five Finger Death Punch tried their hand at a two-volume album release that I felt them really starting to go south.

Anyway, first-off, like I said, I have had this cursory comparison enter my mind, so I understand the reasoning behind it. Five Finger Death Punch has been for the past few years, unfortunately, probably the biggest (in terms of success) representative of modern groove metal and alternative metal, even if it’s just in name only at this point. Demon Hunter play a similar style of groovy, melodic metalcore and alternative metal to what got Five Finger Death Punch on the map (though Demon Hunter predate Five Finger Death Punch by five years and three full-length studio albums), and of all the “Christian bands” doing it, they’re definitely the biggest right now, and have been for a good few years as well. Ivan Moody’s and Ryan Clark’s aggressive mid-treble growls and melodic vocal deliveries are pretty similar, and they could both easily sing for the other’s band. And both bands are not shy to give one or a couple power or acoustic ballads a shot per album, which Demon Hunter definitely have a better track record with (see “My Heartstrings Come Undone”, “Carry Me Down”, the acoustic version of “The Tide Began to Rise”, “One Thousand Apologies”, and “Driving Nails”). And perhaps the most unnerving aspect, both bands are definitely not making their best work right now with Demon Hunter peaking at The World Is a Thornand Five Finger Death Punch continuing to nosedive since War Is the Answer. At least Demon Hunter had a period of relatively consistently good output and more than one and a half really good albums under their belt. But that’s really where the similarities end: their similar genre styles and their respective successes.

What makes being compared to Five Finger Death Punch such a hypothetically inauspicious sign for a band, such as Demon Hunter, doesn’t really apply to Demon Hunter. Yes, while they’ve struggled for form for the past few years, it’s nothing compared to the absolute trash fire Five Finger Death Punch have made of their career only worse as time goes on from an artistic standpoint. Last year’s And Justice for None was undoubtedly the most corporately managed and phoned-in sellout project ever from them. And while I thought Demon Hunter’s Outlive in 2017 was below their potential, it didn’t make my bottom ten like And Justice for None did the next year. But what really makes Five Finger Death Punch such a despised name has a lot to do with the attitude. Ivan Moody behind the microphone and on the lyric sheet is juvenile and cringe-worthy to put it nicely, and his ugly enough prima donna antics on-stage and behind-the-scenes have leaked into the band’s music as of late to provide an utterly unattractive attitude to the band’s sound, a problem Ryan Clark and Demon Hunter definitely do not have to a degree even close to being worth mentioning. For them it’s just putting in the honest compositional work they always have, and singing semi-ambiguously about their Christian faith. Demon Hunter have also not terminally infected their sound with radio pandering and butchered production to nearly the same degree that Five Finger Death Punch have. On a very superficial level, yes, there are some similarities between the two, but where it really matters, Demon Hunter is not nearly the rotten eggs Five Finger Death Punch are to their respective spheres of metal.

Okay, that took way too long, but with it out of the way, on to the matter at hand: War and Peace (the two Demon Hunter albums, not the famously massive Leo Tolstoy novel). The pair of albums are intended to explore the band’s self-attributed stylistic poles on their own respectively, with War focusing on their groove metal and metalcore roots and Peace focusing on the more alternative hard rock forays they often go off on. Yes, while the prospect of ninety-eight minutes’ worth of music spread across two albums from a band in much less than optimal shape as of late certainly wasn’t a great sign going into these albums, the results were much better than I expected and not quite as watered down as so many projects of this type tend to get. Both these albums bring about a surprising upturn in Demon Hunter’s compositional form.

Of the two, I think Peace is actually a little more solid, only because I think the band better represented that side of themselves than they did their heavier side on War. War isn’t quite the stark contrast to Peace it really could have been if the band tapped deep into the creative well that produced their fastest, thrashiest, and most punishing songs like “The World Is a Thorn”, “LifeWar”, “Storm the Gates of Hell”, “Not I”, and “Beheaded”. Demon Hunter do indeed tap into their metalcore style pretty well, but for my personal preference, I think I would have liked to hear the band less reliant on melodic choruses and melodic vocal sections in general throughout, especially since Peace, meanwhile, finds the band more easily and naturally channeling their less overtly aggressive side. Though War does have a good few highlights worth noting. “Cut to Fit” opens the album with sufficient direct melodic metalcore force comparable to what the band have built their name on. The shortest and fastest track on the album, “Ash”, captures the direct-thrash-assault approach that makes so many of the band’s short title tracks on past albums such bangers. The band do showcase some respectable versatility as well as the song “The Negative” captures a harsh, revolting metalcore feel with Ryan Clark’s scratchy hardcore snarls backed by lone snare battering and its menacing bridge, while “Lesser Gods” finds Clark channeling Randy Blythe a bit during the more grandiose-minded song’s heavy choruses. The closing track, “Gunfight”, is perhaps one of the band’s most directly furious, yet phenomenally ambitiously structured metalcore thrashers. Songs like “Close Enough” and (to a lesser extent) “Unbound”, however, that base their core on basic rock drum beats and typical structuring do indeed (after all my arguing to the contrary) remind a little too much for comfort of Five Finger Death Punch, and mar the album unnecessarily.

Overall though, War is actually a significant upswing from the past two or three releases, and even if it could have gone heavier, it was great to hear Demon Hunter really centrally focusing on the heavy side of their sound that got them where they are. It’s weaknesses are minor, if not only fleeting, and the band show that they still have plenty of gas in the tank to keep their fire going. 

Peace, on the other hand, the rockier album of the two, if you will, isn’t completely neutered at all, just more of a rock-focused album with some alternative metal tinges still held around to spice things up. Ryan Clark’s clinical melodic clean singing takes center stage of the songs on here. This is not to say the rest of the band don’t shine; they do lay back and maintain the vibe of the songs for a greater portion of this album than War, but Peace certainly has its unexpectedly adventurous and even heavy moments.

The opening track “More Than Bones” keeps the allegro pace and the metallic guitar distortion dialed in from the previous album. It’s really the most classic-rock the band get for he entire album, and it might have served better somewhere in the middle to break up the rest of the hard-rocking material. But its placement is only a minor potential gripe. The hardness with which the rest of Peace rocks is kind of surprising, with “Bet My Life” even featuring a downtuned nu metal guitar breakdown of sorts near its closing moments. The song “Time Only Takes” also rocks pretty thoroughly hard through some slow, but crunchy, palm-muted guitar grooves. The similarly crunchy metallic verses on the song “Loneliness” sound like some old-school, actually cool, Five Finger Death Punch, while the more subdued acoustic choruses provide an unexpectedly hair-raising juxtaposition.

“Rescue Myself” sees the band directing themselves toward making one of those famous power ballads of theirs, with some ethereal choir vocal backing being one of the primary highlights of the song, which isn’t much to write home about compositionally. The results are decent, but the song “Peace” is perhaps the most fully realized upbeat somber ballad the band have ever made, and its sheer soulfulness and sing-along infectiousness is unrivaled on the rest of the album. The stripped back piano balladry of “Fear Is Not My Guide” comes pretty close, though. It’s a nice breather track for sure, but I think I still would have liked to hear some kind of extra instrumental or compositional ambition of some sort on it.

Like I said, I think Peace is just the slightly more consistent of the two, if only for its fewer moments of actual Five Finger Death Punch reminiscence. It’s by no means a take on the band’s “soft side”, but rather a focused exhibit of the band’s other main style of song-writing, which they do well to spice up regularly enough on here to keep it interesting.

After sitting with it after a several good listens though, still enjoying it, I have to say this was a risky move that paid off with what will likely be a sleeper hit for the band. I wouldn’t have put money on them bouncing back a bit with more material so soon, but the centrifuging of their styles seems to have helped bring the best out of them for both sides of their sound, and that’s great. I think being able to commit fully to one approach and one focus one one project and commit fully to another focus and approach on another project both helped the respective albums flow more smoothly and helped the band not worry so much about the balancing act they’ve had to maintain between the two throughout their career. Of course, the question is where to go from here. Do Demon Hunter do split-up or double releases for the rest of the foreseeable future with this style? Probably not; it sure must be exhausting for the band, and even as well as this one came out, I don’t think I’d bet on a repeat being similarly palatable in the near future. I don’t know, most band that have tried this kind of double album thing usually don’t do it twice in a row unless long, winding compositions makes their albums long as hell to begin with (i.e. Swans, Sunn O))), Prurient). Opeth just did Ghost Reveries after Deliverance and Damnation. Periphery did their third eponymous album after the Juggernaut double album. And Five Finger Death Punch shat the bed even worse with Got Your Six after their double album snooze party. So I guess it’s more likely they go for a more traditional single LP next, which will mean probably recombining everything that did so well split up on these albums. Hopefully the time apart the styles got here and the vitality the band found in their approach keeps the upward momentum going for their next album. For now, I’m rather pleased with how this came out. Definitely the best offering of alternative metal I’ve heard all year.

Good job Demon Hunter, my review is as annoyingly long as the book you named your albums after/10