Winds of Plague Album Review
Winds of Plague- The Great Stone War
Album review by Rudi Greyvenstein
A band that is rapidly making a name for themselves, Winds of Plague return to ride the wave of their current success with their third album, The Great Stone War (out on Century Media), a little over a year after the seminal Decimate the Weak got everyone talking about the Deathcore/Symphonic metal/hardcore sextet.
Firstly, this band is set to just straight up obliterate and transcend the boundaries of the deathcore scene into which they have been quite undeservedly categorized. Ok, so there are elements of hardcore and deathmetal, so technically they are a deathcore band, but few bands have managed to successfully amalgamate symphonic/black metal influences into the (sub) genre sound to achieve a sound that is as instantly and easily recognizable as that of WOP. It just seems wrong to lump them in with the rest of the current, fashionably ‘death metal core’ bands.
From the first listen, the Great Stone War has the unmistakable haunting, eerie presence that defined their previous album. The spoken introductory ‘Earth’, sets the scene for vocalist, Johnny Plague’s story of a heathen negotiating his (or her ?!) way through a world ravaged by religious conflict, ultimately heading toward a final conflict, that will not be fought with technology, but with stone! Told in an accent used to portray ancient war/battle movies characters in movies such as 300/Troy (check out the WOP/300 compilation on YouTube!) and accompanied by epic (and very suitably composed! especially the guitar part 
music that also seems like it was composed in the year 2000BC (although the Great Stone War is set in the future, where society has reverted back to the stone age) it effectively invokes an environment that has been engrained into our minds from watching the various ancient war/battle movies that have been so popular over the 00’s.
If the intro doesn’t give you the idea that you are in for an epic journey of a concept album, with keyboard still sustaining, the explosive Forged in Fire (track 2) should blast the protagonists journey out of your speakers/headphones and straight into the very core of your imagination!
A superb starting track that showcases all that fans have grown to love about the band; thrash/ death metal riffs, blast beats, atmospheric keys and a typically hardcore (d-beat with hardcore vocals) middle part blending with the keys (which other band can pull that off?!), ending in a bone-rattling breakdown.
Not going into too much detail for the rest of the songs (I’ll leave that up to you;), but the remaining 9 tracks maintain the intensity and brilliantly compliment the concept of the album. This is one of those rare albums where one doesn’t feel the need to skip any of the tracks as they all seem to flow seamlessly and move into one another as if they are a part of a greater endeavour; the band’s intention I’m sure.
Produced by Daniel Castleman, it is part of the recent wave of superb recordings that have been churned out by Lambesis Studios (founded by As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis). Technology allows for such quality recordings these days that it has become a balance act trying not to enhance the sound too much, especially for heavy music and its tendency to want the kick drums to sound more trebly than the snare. The sound is as good as things can possibly get for metal recording without sounding too far from what the band is capable in a live setting. The kick drum (NB!) sounds fat, punchy and nothing like the overly produced plastic/synthetic sound often heard these days. Rest of the drums sound great as do the guitars (yes, bass too, it’s there and sounds good ;p) and there is just a general satisfying phatness to the recording.
Johnny Plague’s vocals are just as heavy, if not even heavier sounding than the previous album and while it seems like there are hundreds of vocalists out there these days who can cover the whole screaming range from the bree’s to the shrieks, it is true that everyone has a unique voice and Johnny’s is just frightening!
Another rarity amongst the standard of low tunings in the deathcore field, Winds of Plague uses regular old drop D tuning! It just proves that low tunings really aren’t necessary as it doesn’t detract from the heaviness in any way. The riffing mostly goes along with the ancient epic/BC-times war movie vibe mentioned earlier, but not to say it in a negative way! It makes for awesome sounding riffs and the byzantine/harmonic/Phrygian patterns are suited perfectly to the string and choir ambience of the keys. The phrasing is never over-indulgent and while there aren’t too many solo’s, maybe a little less than on Decimate the Weak, the more laid back melodies and harmonized lines and occasional sweep arpeggio are still there, as was the case on the previous album, and are always done in a tasteful and non-flashy way.
The subject of keys leads to the related topic of the substitution of 2 members of the band. With keyboards being so fundamental to WOP’s sound, how lucky are they to have a keyboardist that happens to be both skilled, really good looking AND who likes to post pic’s of herself topless all over the net (Google it)? Kirsten Randall’s picture is already amongst those on the wall of many a keen teenage metal-head, definitely a valuable asset to the band!
Art Cruz completes the new lineup with an impressively energetic performance filled with tasty fills and many blastbeats. Not overly flashy but well suited to the songs.
In closing, Winds of Plague have forged a niche for themselves in the currently saturated deathcore genre. The 2 years spent on the road have resulted in a very cohesive, well put together album and have allowed the band to refine their unique brand of blackdeath-battle-epic-300 -*core metal. . This unique amalgamation has placed the band in the fortunate position of appealing to the ‘scene kids’, the old school, the goth/black metal enthusiasts as well as the hardcore scene-great success is inevitable!
