After many listens to this CD it finally dawned on me who this band really reminds me of. A band from the old days that I just loved called 'Metal Church' and no they are not a Christian band, but Antithesis is.
While I really liked their first self-titled album Antithesis has made Dying for Life an album I absolutely love. Heavy Metal madness at its finest is what is presented here. The music is somewhat progressive, but not quite, somewhat thrash, but not quite. In truth it's just best to call this a metal band and walk on from there.
The guitars are...well HUGE, gunning at you from the instant the disc starts spinning. Track 1 'Soul of Ice' takes off and the band doesn't slow until the end of the album. All of the music is backed by one amazing drummer who keeps things cranking with a level of technicality that was far from reached on their first album...and keep in mind I do LIKE that first album, just this new one is so good. Some acoustic pieces thrown in here and there get annihilated when the heavy guitars rip back in. Some harmony vocals interchanged with the gruff vocals of Ty Cook.
The lyrics are best summed up in Sorg's review below, I won't go into them then.
Wow, this CD really is impressive, the quality of this release is amazing, this one can easily stand up to tons of secular CDs out there...and if anyone's been looking for something along those Metal Church lines from the days of Blessing in Disguise this is certainly worth checking out.
9/10
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #89Reviewed by Doug Van PeltPower metal hungry fans will be glad to hear Antithesis' progression as a band. Besides throwing in a lot of good ideas into their progressive power metal attack, they are sounding tighter and the songs are sounding leaner and meaner (I know that sounds like an oxymoron within prog rock circles, but it's true). James Lewis' vocals rock with that Bruce Dickinson sound, which add a commercial…Art for the Ears 2001Reviewed by Marco PovervestThis is the second album of this band that was formed four years ago. They are another metal band from the state of Ohio (like Jacob's Dream, Biogenesis, Gnashing Of Teeth). Musically they play bold US metal. It's old school metal, rooted firmly in the eighties. This is what some call true metal, to differentiate it from the load of new bands that are described as metal too, but are not to be…Dead Zine 2001Reviewed by NecRoSarXThe only other time I heard Antithesis before was their cut on the Massive Frequency Overload compilation some years back, and I wasn't that taken. So, you could probably understand my hesitation with listening to this full-length at first. Well, glad I did, otherwise I would have missed out on some great thrash-influenced progressive metal. There were many comparisons that popped into my mind…Dead Zine 2001Reviewed by SORGOn this sophomore release from Ohio's premier metal band, Antithesis, you get a straight forward in-your-face heavy metal album that pulls no punches. They do not deviate from the "progressive, power, thrash" formula set forth on their self-titled debut, but rather continue down the same path proving that if something works don't try to fix it! This is a very good thing because it is nice to see…
