[REVIEW] The Word Alive – Deceiver

The only way to describe The Word Alive’s new album Deceiver is devastating. The band’s debut full length is groundbreaking and demands your full, unwavering attention.

The opening track to this goliath of a record is “The Hounds Of Anubis.” Let’s just start with the opening lyric, “I’m the king of the world / And it’s crumbling down / All around me falls / The ruins of my enemies / You can’t control me / Or can you not see? /You can’t control me / It’s time to admit defeat / When I speak, you listen to me.” This song makes it clear that TWA is back and with a raging vengeance against a music scene that now-a-days is hard to impress.

This album has two stand out tracks, “Epiphany” and “2012.” If you were to really pick apart the two songs, “Epiphany” would be the “softer” of the two. This song continues the heavy putsch towards destruction but, also features a very catchy chorus that you find yourself singing along to. “2012” on the other hand brings an onslaught of grinding drums and chugging guitars with it. Both songs are stand out in their own ways.

The song “Battle Royale” makes a comeback from their 2009 EP titled Empires. This re-recorded version has a much cleaner feel to it. Everything from the guitars to the vocals sounds heavier and polished.

Moving right along, this record features an all clean-vocalled song believe it or not! “You’re All I See” slows the pace down a bit with no breakdowns of any kind. It proudly stands out on it’s own with an experimental rock feel to it. The lack of any type of heavy, crunching guitar parts shows a lighter side to the band, a lighter side of which I was not expecting at all. This song is very well crafted and shows that the band has the ability to deviate from the aggressive, metalcore side.

The closing song to this wildly impressive album is “We Know Who You Are.” This song starts off with a fading synthesizer effect scratching in the background before a tsunami of raw power takes over. Pay close attention to the lyrics in this song, they are fabulous. This song also features a lot of really cool “twangy” sound effects. Upon hearing that you’re probably thinking “what the hell?” but trust me, the way that they are integrated into the music is perfect. The track then comes to a close with a violin-lead outro.

Deceiver is exactly what fans have been waiting for and more and is the PERFECT follow-up to Empires. It brings in the same sound but, goes way bigger and takes it to new heights (or if you’re talking about the ground shaking breakdowns, new lows!). Every song is unblemished and will without a doubt stay on loop in your car for many weeks to come.

Deceiver drops August 31^st on Fearless Records. Pick up a copy right now by clicking here!