Album Review: Titans Eve - "The Divine Equal"

Review by Josh "Pinky" Pothier

I really thought I was going to hate this album. Mostly because the band logo and album art are so amateurish it was safe to assume this was just another throw it on the pile metal record. Also because it came with some stuffy bullshit about how it was inspired by passages from Paradise Lost and The Book of Genesis in an effort to
appeal to the overflowing demographic of intellectual metal fans.

Listen, I don’t care if your record was inspired by excerpts from Myrtle The Turtle, I just want some sweet riffs and a rhythm section who knows how to follow them, and that’s the one part where Titan’s Eve really delivers. The single, Becoming
The Demon is a well-crafted metal song, with great guitarmonies and really catchy vocals/riffs. This is the kind of band you want to raise your can of Old Milwaukee to and chant along.

As the album progresses it does sort of get monotonous, mostly because of how much the drummer relies on his double kick pedal for patterns. These guitar riffs are great, there are so many patterns you could put under them, you don’t always need to be thudding along with your feet. Leaving your comfort zone as a musician is a sure way to come up with something original, but unfortunately this drummer plays it safe the whole time. He knows his feet are solid, so he sticks to those.

Titan’s Eve have what it takes to make a truly great album, but they need to step away from metal cliché’s like half time drop outs and the previously mentioned addiction to double kicks. Serpent Rising starts with this really great straight feel to it, but once the drums switch to half time all the momentum is lost and the song feels like it’s on two different plains. They have a great talent for arranging parts, now they just have to master arranging feels.

The thing with metal is, you have to know when to rip it up and when to lay back a bit and be dynamic, and they have that part down. Tides of Doom is probably the most ripping song on the record, and it’s the one that feels the most consistent with regard to feel, it’s always moving forward at a fast pace.

There is probably only one song I dislike and that would be Nightfall. Mostly because the vocals in the verse feel like they were written beforehand then sort of forced into the song like a round peg in a square hole. There is no musicality to them the way there is in the other songs, and it all feels out of place, but hey, one out of eleven ain’t bad.

Titan’s Eve should do fairly well with this album, most metal fans don’t give as much of a shit about the nitpicky things I do, and that’s just fine. Metal shouldn’t really be picked apart anyway, it either makes you want to run around tearing the world up and punching things, or not. This album doesn’t make me want to run around the neighborhood throwing rocks, but I might rip up some shrubs and kick a pigeon.

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"The Divine Equal" drops February 1st 2011, but can currently be pre-ordered on Titans Eve bandcamp link here, in addition to a free download of their track "Becoming The Demon" at the following link here on PureGrainAudio.com.