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Onward to Olympas – This World Is Not My Home

01.13.10 Reviews | by: Steve

Band: Onward to Olympas
Album: This World Is Not My Home
Year: 2010
Label: Facedown Records
Myspace

Best Song: Unstoppable
Score: 8/10
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Onward to Olympas is a five-piece metalcore band out of North Carolina.  Here is some metal from the south that is made extremely well.  This is not your typical southern fried metal like Maylene & the Sons of Disaster but just some good old death/metalcore from down south.  While This World Is Not My Home is not anything new in this genre, it is still very impressive and played extremely well.

Onward to Olympas does a great job of including several musical styles into one brutal album.  Those elements include hardcore, metal, and death metal.  It is amazing to see a band blend these three genres together in what seem like an effortless fashion.  This album constantly attacks your audible senses with insane breakdowns and some sweet guitar riffs.  In addition, I love the well-timed guitar solos in a few of the tracks namely “Presence at the Funeral.”  Instrumentally, Onward to Olympas does a more than adequate job of pulling off some brutal breakdowns, insane riffs, and face melting solos.

As far as vocals, Onward to Olympas does a great job of mixing some intense hardcore screams with some sweet clean vocals hear and there.  I know some people do not care for the clean vocals in their metal but believe me this is not post-hardcore in way at all, and you will definitely like this.  The clean vocals keep the listener off balance and make the tracks catchy and memorable.  I have to say that the best track with the clean lyrics and vocals would have to be the title track “This World Is Not My Home” where Taisha Beathea of a local North Carolina band Carson fills in some amazing guest vocals, which come way out of left field.  The singing and screaming in all the songs on This World Is Not My Own are first class.

The best song on the album in my opinion is the first track “Unstoppable,” which has some heavy breakdowns and some catchy phrases that are sure to get some mayhem started out on the floor.  When Kramer Lowe screams, “bring forth the masses”!  I definitely can see myself letting loose in the pit and banging some bodies around.

From start to finish this is an outstanding Facedown debut album from a band that deserves a lot more publicity than they are currently getting.  I have a feeling that once this album hits the streets on January 19th, they wont be one of Facedown’s best-kept secrets any longer.  This album is built to please from start to finish.  If you take away the clean vocals, Onward to Olympas reminds me a lot of their label mates For Today; however, I like the clean vocals and I love this album!

TRACKLIST:

  1. Unstoppable
  2. Enemies
  3. Overcoming
  4. Her Best Words Were Goodbye
  5. Don’t Cry to Me
  6. Sink or Swim
  7. Awake in a Dream
  8. Presence at the Funeral
  9. The Lost Generation
  10. This World Is Not My Home