Ares Kingdom – Return To Dust
This Kansas City based band features former members of Nepenthe, Order From Chaos and Vulpecula. As you might expect with a line-up of seasoned metal veterans such as this, listening to the music of Ares Kingdom is like traveling backward through a metal time warp. You can hear bits and pieces of just about every cool thing that the metal genre has offered up in the last thirty or so years in just about every second of “Return To Dust”. I don’t mean to imply that Ares Kingdom sound “dated” as that is simply not the case. Rather, I mean to say that they sound experienced and well versed in the metal arts and lore. They do a terrific job of bridging the gap between the metal of old and the metal of today. For instance, the tone of the guitar bringing forth these classy riffs is as thick and heavy as the tone you remember from any of your Swedish death metal classics, yet the notes being played could easily be found an any of your Venom or Maiden albums. The soloing found on “Return To Dust” is equally as classy as the riffing. Also, the vocals would work equally as well on a death, black or thrash album as they are a perfect blend of the three with no one style emerging dominant over the others. I wish I had more to say about this album as it probably deserves a more lengthy review, but I have pretty much summed up my feelings on it. This is a very cool disc to spin when you want to rock out, relax, have a few beers and get all nostalgic. – Lance Rogers
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