A Brutal Christmas – “The Season in Chaos”

In the words of Sounds of the Dead Records, “Christmas will never be the same.” If you’re tired of listening to your mom’s Amy Grant Christmas CD over and over during the holidays, this year you can do something about it. SOTD has released A Brutal Christmas: The Season in Chaos, which contains a slew of metal bands playing your favorite Christmas tunes. The bands on this compilation include Archer, Kekal, Royal Anguish (w/Mistral), Frank’s Enemy, Frost Like Ashes, Tortured Conscience, Hearken, Death Requisite, EverSINcEve, Faithbomb, and Pure Defiance.

The standout cut for sure is the powerful and emotional version of “Mary Did You Know?” by Royal Anguish. The blazing guitar work, the clean/death vocal trade-offs, and solid keyboards make for a very memorable song. Frost Like Ashes turns in a killer version of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence/O Come Emmanuel”, while Tortured Conscience cranks out a brutal, yet hilarious version of “Little Drummer Boy”. And Archer was a welcome surprise playing “Angels We Have Heard on High”. Really, the only song I didn’t care for was “Joy to the World” by Pure Defiance. Think Five Iron Frenzy with a metal edge, dragging “Joy to the World” into a six-minute plus song! Yikes!

With a solid lineup, quality songs, and good production, this is definitely a disc that you don’t want to wait until Christmas to purchase. Check out www.sotdrecords.com for more info. [Sounds of the Dead/ Matt Morrow]

This album review did not run in the printed version of HM (due to space limitations), and thus is an “online exclusive” of sorts. Order the Print Version of HM for tons more reviews of new albums.
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