Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Demon Hunter - Exile (2022)
Previously on the journey of Demon Hunter, the band re-recorded classic ballads in their own acoustic album Songs of Death and Resurrection, but it just made me wish for a return to metal form someday for this band. As a young adult listening to the heavier metal, I don't wanna lose interest in this band, and I thought I might if they continued to go softer. I mildly enjoy the War and Peace duo, in which the former showed more of their metal capabilities, whereas the latter experimented closer to hard rock territory.
For their new 12th album Exile (also the first with their own self-founded record label), I was hoping for a more equal-sounding album like the ones the band made before War and Peace. Sadly, it sounds like the Peace side is slowly taking over the sound...
However, the furious "Defense Mechanism" opens with the band's usual heaviness, featuring growling vocals by Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura, Soulfly). "Master" has a bit of a Motionless in White vibe in the industrial background within their alt-metal. There are two songs in the album that are the longest by the band since the closing epic of their 2002 debut, the first of which is the 7-minute "Silence the World", a beautiful epic reminding me a bit of Trivium's Silence in the Snow album, and featuring singing by Tom S. Englund of Evergrey. The incredible highlight "Heaven Don't Cry" is worth being a radio single, mixing heaviness with melody. This can reach the mainstream without stripping down the sound as much as Songs of Death and Resurrection and instead elevating the writing quality.
"Another Place" stands out as another highlight, sounding ethereal in the first verse before a rising chorus that's one of the best here. The excellent lyrics tell about escaping from darkness into light, "If we're not allowed to be, breathe outside the lines, we will find our place, just beyond their eyes, somewhere of our own, somewhere through the black, set the old ablaze, never turning back." Track #6 "Freedom Is Dead" marks a full return to the metalcore energy and growled vocals from Ryan Clark, though it seems more like an appetizer compared to the rest of this main course. "Praise the Void" is a re-recording of the sole new song from Songs of Death and Resurrection, adding full instrumentation instead of just piano/strings. The widely ranging lyrics are much clearer here, "But here in the dark, I feel nothing, I see no one, no solace at all, we once heard the lasting call, but now we praise the void, for this love, wasted love, praise the void, we found nothing is enough." Then enters "Revolutions", ranging in vocal variety, battling between the screaming empire and the soft-singing rebellion.
The riffing note in "Chemicals" drags on for too long, sounding uninspired. "Godless" is interesting because of the guitar soloing by Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner. It's his first studio recording since his near-fatal health-scare; he was performing with Priest and apparently the encore song "Painkiller" was more than he could physically take, ending up suffering an aorta rupture and internal bleeding. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he had a 10-hour open-heart surgery. It was shocking for him because he never had any heart issues before then. Luckily he's still alive, and he recorded his aforementioned guest appearance a couple months later. One more highlight, "Devotion" is the last island of metal heaviness in a sea of dark brooding melody. The second of the band's two longest tracks, the closing 8-minute "Along the Way" is just underwhelming through its long length, repeating choruses and verses when they should've included a bridge of vocal alternation. Talk about ending the album on a soft whimper...
There are barely any bands formed in the new millennium as active and prolific as Demon Hunter, with most of their albums being excellent works of art. They have matured over the years, despite Exile not reaching the band's earlier excellence, and I appreciate Clark's efforts in making albums like this. There's a little more atmosphere in the music, and the album has its own defiant concept set in futuristic fantasy. Clearly, Demon Hunter has discarded most of their well-known metalcore and brought in a cleaner variant of the early 2000s alt-metal, but hey, it's your call if you wanna hear how less heavy the band has become....
Favorites: "Defense Mechanism", "Silence the World", "Heaven Don't Cry", "Another Place", "Praise the Void", "Revolutions", "Godless", "Devotion"