01. Factionless
02. How The World Went Black
03. Parasite
04. Like Gravity
05. Bareknuckle Lover
06. For Kingdom For Glory
07. This Time Is Ours
08. Devil In Her Eyes
09. The Connection
10. I'm No Devil (I'm Just A Girl)
11. Whitehorse
12. We Are The Wall
The first time I saw Chasing Dragons was about four years ago when my band played a show with them at The Corporation in Sheffield. I enjoyed their set and have followed them ever since. In 2016, I was given a copy of their new CD called Faction: Prologue, which featured three tracks due to appear on their forthcoming album, simply titled 'Faction'. Two years later, the album has finally arrived.
Incidentally, of the three tracks on the taster, only two ended up on the final thing. This, along with how long they spent on it, shows that Chasing Dragons have made every effort to make this debut album as good as it can be. Every track is a winner, and Faction is a certified 'filler-free zone'. The production is also excellent. They've not only spent their time wisely developing these songs, but have been to a top studio to make them sound as good as possible. They clearly aren't prepared to miss any opportunities, and all of their hard work has paid dividends as Faction is an album of a quality that you'd expect from a major label release.
Musically, Chasing Dragons utilise an interesting mix of classic and contemporary Metal styles, reminiscent of bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet For My Valentine. There's plenty of technical guitar riffing and double bass drum assaults to please most fans of this genre. Lead singer Tank doesn't shy away from singing big, melodic choruses, weaved amongst the Tech-Metal, giving the bulk of the songs a commercial touch and making them instantly accessible to new listeners.
Picking favourites on an album as strong throughout as this one isn't an easy task, but I particularly like Bareknuckle Lover, Devil In Her Eyes, I'm No Devil (I'm Just A Girl), Whitehorse and album closer We Are The Wall. Any one of those songs could be a 'breakthrough hit' were it to be heard by a wide enough audience.
Chasing Dragons have released a fantastic debut worthy of international recognition. Whether they get that or not, given the current state of the music industry, remains to be seen. However, they've done themselves proud and have set the bar high, hopefully inspiring a plethora of musicians out there to step their game up and do the same.
No comments
Post a Comment