Herod - For Whom The Gods Would Destroy

*=Staff's pick	We Are Those People* Revelations* I Will A New Hope Into The Sky That Green Feeling* When Your Body Falls* The Finch Against The Fire The End Winter's Bane* Look Beyond Video: We Are Those People.mpg

Genre	Heavy Metal	Judah Nero	Vocals
Tracks	11	Jesse Benker	Guitar
Runningtime	52 Min.	Bryce Marsh	Guitar
Label	Lifeforce Records	Jeremy Partlow	Bass
Release	21 May 2004	Mike Jeffers	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Soilwork, Metallica, Disturbed

This album is absolutely brilliant, from out of nowhere lands an album that blows me away. American band Herod delivers thrash metal with both energy and emotion as well as strong melodies.

The bottom line with Herod is that the music is growing from Metallica and Megadeth with leads and breaks and now we are talking about the great era around Master Of Puppets and …And Justice For All, how about that. Throw in a couple of Iron Maiden harmonies and leads as well and we are getting pretty close, just listen to the opening of Winter's Bane. Herod feels like a very modern band that also has strong similarities with contemporary American metal with bands like Godsmack and Creed but mostly Disturbed with the modern sound mixed with clean guitar melodies.

The thrash leads, hardcore/punk breaks and the metal melodies blends greatly with the soft and emotional vocals from Judah Nero, even if he also with a controlled sense and angry voice master the skill of growls I think it is his voice that makes me draw most of the similarities with the modern American metal. And if that wasn't enough they also manages to create some solid death metal as well.

Just as in When Your Body Falls the death metal is mixed with the American sound, imagine something along a mix of Dark Tranquillity and Disturbed. The lead part is right down the alley of Dark Tranquillity with the melody and vocals while the song in the chorus slows down with a clean voice so that Disturbed becomes a closer comparison. The End shows more comparisons towards Swedish melodic death while The Green Feeling shows furious Slayer-like solo parts. Constantly Herod feels modern and fresh with their sound that is highly energetic and even groundbreaking at times, this music speaks directly to me. Well perhaps not groundbreaking but they do have something great in them.

With the calm track The Finch Against The Fire we get a breather before Herod once again starts to tastefully portioning out the aggression. Herod successfully balances up the more aggressive and faster parts of the music with the softer emotional singing of Judah, that is a mixture that appeals to my ears.

On what can be seen as a negative side is that I find it hard to get stuck with any of the tracks, all are more or less equally good and none of them falls out of frame. Even if I would liked one or two tracks that rose above the rest I really don't care much since For Whom The Gods Would Destroy is such a solid album and so competently well done.

Seriously I think its best you listen to them and decide for yourselves what to think because I find it hard to give a fair picture of Herod, there is so much to their music and many references to compare with that it easy to miss things, but to put it in short you have contemporary American metal on top of classic Metallica thrash with emotional vocals combined with Swedish melodic death. It feels fresh and modern with emotion and most of all it feels big and highly energetic.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Thomas