Fit For A King “The Hell We Create”
The tribal rhythms, the building guitars, the chanting vocals, it’s all fire and pyrotechnics before a ominous growl of ‘this is the hell we create’ from Ryan Kirby and the Fit For A King’s new album The Hell We Create erupts.
The opening and title track is a barrage of drums, punchy riffs with a switch up of bluster and vicious intent. It’s a belter of an opening track.
How do you follow that? With the enormous End (The Other Side) is how. A track that since release has been on my constant rotation, turned up to eleven and blasting through my speakers. The chorus is indescribably touching and powerful as Kirby sings about nearly losing his wife to a stroke.
After being sonically punched in the face by tracks of Mike Tyson proportions, the band do slow it down for Falling Through The Sky, a more reflective track with a dynamic catchy chorus followed big riff before the pounding Sink Below pummels you with Trey Celaya’s epic drumming.
What begins to become apparent is that Fit For A King have created an album that is to be played from start to finish, not skipped, as the story unfolds before you, with enough breathing space within the tracks before you’re expected to unleash your emotions again in a torrent of guitar fury.
Reaper sonically has so much going on, it’s like being attacked by furry playful creatures known as metal that you don’t know which to pat first, while Times Like This, featuring The Ghost Inside’s Jonathan Vigil, is a huge banger of track which has already been released as a brilliant video.
Eyes Roll Back has so much kinetic energy attached, the scattered vocals and buzz saw guitars are bolts of lightning over the deeply emotional lyrical content. It’s this lyrical content that appears within the last act of the album through tracks Fracture, Reaching Out and What You Left Behind.
Fracture is a painful and brutally emotional song of being lied to by a partner as a break up ensues. Screams of I don’t need you, Every lie you justified and You mean nothing to me pour out, the hurt in the song hitting all the raw spots.
Reaching Out is a melancholy lament with strains of I see you’re lost in the darkness, the musical harmonies succinct and powerful before What You Left Behind is built around suffering growls and riffs as a church bell rings out ominously throughout finishing the album.
From the drum rhythms at the beginning to the church bell at the end, this is a deeply raw, personal and heart-rending album that takes you through all the emotions of love and loss. A cathartic tale told in the way those emotions should be, with the beauty of pain and colourfulness of the music combined to create a truly spellbinding album.
Album Review By Iain McCallum
