The Power And The Glory

Call Me Armageddon (2004)

elliot

Sometimes, a band can remind you way too much of another, much better band. It's like they're trying to do everything exactly like someone else, which in turn makes them irrelevant. The Power and The Glory seem to be one of the few exceptions to this rule. They have some close ties to Converge, but can bearing similarities to one of the best bands in hardcore really be that much of a bad thing?

The answer, of course, is yes. But The Power and The Glory do a great job of pulling it off. For a basic description of Call Me Armageddon, just think of what Converge's Jane Doe album would sound like if it got even noisier. Vocalist Ezra Morris' rantings have a thick distortion on them, but sound even more powerful and throaty. His lyrics are weaving and rambling, like run-on sentences, and still manage to paint precise pictures of desperation. There is a constant repetition in the last track "Year of the Fear", of "We all failed/ We all fell/ So just remember my face when we meet in Hell/ We all fail/ We all fall." Somehow, a silver lining still manages to make its way through these declarations.

As a band, The Power and the Glory undoubtedly have their shit together, in a big way. Instead of a dual-guitar attack, Kenn TwoFour handles all of the guitar duties, and delivers with riffs that punish like few others can. The final minute of the title track is so crushing it can barely be justified in words. Effects pedals are used in certain songs, helping TwoFour to strangle the high ends of the strings into soaring atmospherics that bring these songs to their climaxes. The musical highpoint of the album is "East (There Is Such a Lot of the World to See)" which slows the attack down to an almost hypnotic dirge.

Having Kurt Ballou's unique ear for chaotic music behind this, and having Jacob Bannon's artwork set the feel for the music doesn't hurt things either. However, The Power and The Glory sounds ready to stand far apart from Converge. This band means business.