If Pantera Were A Christian Band ...

Fasedown are a Christian Metalcore band who play some pretty brutal metal. There is a definite Pantera influence as well as some Living Sacrifice. But despite those influences, Fasedown manage to keep their sound original. Unlike say Eternal Decision who damn near mimicked Metallica before switching to Godsmack. Mind you they had a couple killer tunes. Today, however, I'll be reviewing Fasedown's self-titled debut. Featuring members from Deliverance, The Crucified and The Blamed all who wanted to move in a new more modern metal direction, or so it would seem because Fasedown is nothing like any of the ex bands these members were from. What we have here is a brutal metal treat that is furious and bone crushingly heavy.

"Fasedown" is heavy freakin' metalcore, no fancy solos here, just flat out brutality. Right from the crushing opener "Abolished" to the fast and furious album closer "Time". "Abolished" has some funky bass work and "Time" is Sepultura-like and almost death metal at times. "Seven" is the stand out Pantera influenced song and it's a killer tune.

The bone crushing songs are "Hypocrite", the funky and fast "Broken" and the flat out headbanger "Genetic Rage". "Prelude" is an acoustic/clean electric Slayer-like picker which is a beautiful lead into the heavy and dark "Chapter Six" which one of my favourites. "Memoirs Of A Modern Judas" is heavy and dark while almost black metal in intensity, a wicked tune.

Although this album is entirely fantastic, I'll pick "The Almighty" as my favourite track. It has a cool intro and some pummeling riffwork. And there's no doubt that this song is a shout out to God Almighty as it ends with heavy riffing repetitive lyrics ~Praise You, Praise You!~. The other song I wanted to make special mention of is "Genocide: 1915". This song is about the Armenian Genocide by the Turk's. I won't go on about the controversy surrounding this, but it was only after reading an article on Orlando Bloom in Reader's Digest that I realized what this song was about. He's doing a film about this particular topic. I only downloaded this album off iTunes so never had a CD jacket or anything to reference. It's a heavy dark tune, even more so now that I know the subject matter.

Fasedown have put out a brutally heavy album with very catchy songs. They are openly Christian and it comes out it the songs, but I never get the feeling it's preachy. I highly recommend this for any listeners of Thrashy metalcore. Well up next is ... I don't know ... I have a couple options so I'll surprise ya's!