Album Review: Weapons of Our Warfare by Deliverance

(11/2/09 edit: What was I thinking? A 10? This album is really good, but a 10? This is too melodic to really kick my ***. Besides, his voice fits better with there more progressive metal stuff, like on Stay of Excecution (and he sounds almost exactly like the guy from Queensrÿche not Ronnie James Dio.) Now that is a good song. The chugging riff with a rhythm that charges forward. That is what I like in metal. My new rating is 8 out of 10)

(A few minutes later: I'm back after a few minutes, what am I talking about? Of course it sounds great, but prehaps I just dont like the operatic singing. Whatever the case, I overrated this album, its still really good, but not a 10.)

(1/12/10 edit: No! What was I thinking? It's not a bad album at all, its pretty good, there later stuff sucks I hear, although I do like the song "Stay of Execution", my final rating of 8 out of 10 still stands, but this is still a good metal album, of course it's heavy at times.)

So soon after I posted that video, and impressed by some stuff I heard on Rhapsody, I downloaded the album off I-tunes. My conclusion. This album rules. With a capital R. To start off, the production on this album is great. The musicianship is on par with early Metallica and Megadeth. And almost all of it is sutible for headbanging, or "Brain Breaking" as Leah calls it. This means alot coming from a Christian band. Where alot seem to stay in amaturism, I think because they have a guaranteed fan base, not these guys, these guys are up there, they seem serious about musicianship. Not to mention, even though it's a Christian band, you won't find any preaching or bible stories or anything (except maybe "23" which is about psalm 23, but Megadeth did the same thing) it's all spiritual warfare and such. Some songs that stand out to me, are "This Present Darkness" which is a fast shredder and reminds me of Metallica's "Battery" (but doesn't rip it off at all.) The title track, "Weapons of Our Warfare" which you can watch below, (and which Lars Ulrich called one of his top 10 favorite videos)."Solitude, which is one of the more melodic songs and is one of the best songs on the album. "Flesh and Blood" which at 7:21, is the longest song on here and rules. "Greetings of Death" which has a cool doodly hammer riff. After listning to it a couple times, I noticed the similarities to Metallica's "The End of The Line". But they didn't rip it off since this came out 18 years before Death Magnetic. But there really are no bad songs on this album, all of them are good in fact. (Except "Bought for Blood" objectivly speaking I suppose it's not a terrible song, but I don't like it.) On a side note, the singer doesn't really have alot of growl to his singing, he sings agressivly, and has a good range, well, actually thats a good thing he isn't trying to rip off James Hetfield, but he sounds fine, he doesnt sound like Joey Belladonna, he has more of a Ronnie James Dio quality to his voice. (Now that I listen to this more, he kinda sounds like Dave Mustaine in his higher ranges, but with out the grumbling and mumbling.) So it's still metal. Bottom Line: really well played speed metal, go out and buy this album now. 10 out 10