Arizona has brought quite a few great bands to us over the years. For example Nuclear Death, Atrophy and most recently Job For A Cowboy. Rising Pain is a relatively new act (formed in 2002) from Phoenix, AZ and I’m sure they would like to be named among the best metal bands from said state.
To be perfectly honest with you, I have heard of the band before but never got around to check them out. They’ve released two full-lenght records (Existence Is Futile in 2007 and The Essence Of Decay in 2009) so far and this year marks the release of their most recent work, the EP War Of Souls.
I’m going to review that very EP right after the jump, to find out if they are indeed one of Arizona’s finest.
Rising Pain – War Of Souls
1. The Price We Pay – 5:35
2. Siren – 3:57
3. War Of Souls – 3:38
4. Let’s Burn The World – 3:01
5. Speechless – 4:29
War Of Souls starts off with ‘The Price We Pay,’ which opens with a very interesting and moody intro. In a way it sounds like a mixture of Groove Metal-era Sepultura and Kataklysm. Halfway through, the song gets very intense and heavy. The band harmonizes perfectly and, despite the sheer amount of heaviness and “noise” (for lack of a better word), you can make out each instrument clearly. That is definitely a point that’s very important to me. The band could play some of the finest music but if the music is produced and mixed badly, I will turn it off. Luckily this release doesn’t suffer from the Resurrection Through Carnage disease of a production.
The second song, ‘Siren,’ proves that this band doesn’t fuck around. With the power and attitude, that can only be matched by Pantera, Rising Pain never let loose. While all songs of this release contain a similar kind of attitude and core sound, it never gets boring. The band spices each song up with a different ingredient. Take the clean singing of ‘The Price We Pay,’ in the vein of Howard Jones-era Killswitch Engage, or the brilliant last minute of ‘War Of Souls,’ which ushers in with a bass piece before it turns into an ear-shattering act of violence. ‘Speechless’ in turn reminds me a bit of Scars Of Life, just better, but still this song is probably the weakest of the bunch and not even the really well-played accoustic outro can save the song. Don’t get me wrong though. It might be the weakest song of this EP, but the first four songs are of very high quality and ‘Speechless’ just comes along a little bland compared to those songs. It’s still not a bad song at all.
Overall you can hear that Rising Pain take influences from a bunch of bands to turn it into a vicious Groove Metal attack. War Of Souls might just be one of the greatest Groove Metal releases of the noughties. If this band had come along earlier, during the genres heyday from the early to mid nineties, I would have predicted a very bright future for this band from Arizona. Rising Pain are a bit too late for that but I’m sure that they will find an audience that still loves Pantera and early Machine Head and knows how to appreciate this kind of music. You can count me in with that crowd.
