THY ART IS MURDER have quickly risen to become staunch leaders of the Australian Metal scene over the last 7 years, playing a delicious brand of Deathcore that even the most elitist and purist of Extreme Metallers could enjoy, not too unlike the early outputs of the likes of early ALL SHALL PERISH. Their previous album, "Hate", was lauded as one of the most ambitious and adventurous Deathcore albums ever created - appraisal we would normally expect from Canadian titans CRYPTOPSY. However, I feel that, unfortunately, both of these accolades come to somewhat of a halt with 2015's "Holy War".

"Light Bearer" was the first of the album's tracks to be shown to the world, in the form of a new music video, and struggled to hold but a candle. Beginning with an eerie introduction aided by atmospheric guitar riffs, it slowly progresses (or rather, regresses) into, well, 'Genericore', with riffs and arrangement that, at times, comes across as crushing and heavy, but ultimately diminished by potholes of thin production. At the time I reserved my judgement for the rest of the album, hoping it wouldn't be a compressionfest; however, come its release and my exploration of the tracks to follow, I can't say it made much headway.

The album's title-track one again attempts a "starting ominous but about to get super-fuckin'-heavy" but comes across as tiresome and flat. I can appreciate what the band is trying to do with the arrangement in this song, becoming much more adventurous with the riffs, alternating between spacey, well-planned breakdowns and blitz of furious riffing, but in the slower sections the heavy chunks lose their edge. What the band is ultimately good at, which is shredding ferocious death, manages to shine through in this track, as it does in other berserkers such as "Violent Reckoning" and "Child Of Sorrow"; the latter two, easily being my highlights of the album. However, in 'filler' tracks such as "Fur And Claw" and "Emptiness" it almost feels like the band have done the exact opposite of what they managed in "Hate", which is trying to avoid abusing the genre's boring clichés; unfortunately, that is what much of this album is.

Stylistic changes in a band's music are unavoidable, and I cannot and will not condemn them for that. Diehard fans of the band's music, and of Deathcore, will find "Holy War" extremely appealing; but what made fogies like me love "Hate" just isn't evident with this release.