Hell Within - 'God Grant Me Vengeance'

Adequate metalcore that won’t offend the ears, but doesn’t push the genre any further ahead in a creative sense.

Hell Within’s third album God Grant Me Vengeance is an edgier version of the metalcore sound Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall have waded in for years. The band utilizes death metal and thrash in their songwriting to appear less like all the other stale acts in the genre. It works too, until clean vocals materialize in a chorus or a hardcore breakdown bogs down the momentum. Those interruptions reinforce that underneath all the raspy screams and blast beats, God Grant Me Vengeance is by-the-books metalcore.

The band does everything in their power to avoid the album being labeled as such. Intense guitar riffs mingle with catchy and speedy leads that give off an air of technicality to the instrumental work. This is much welcomed, as the album gets very repetitious in the second half. Most of the songs are structured in a rigid fashion, leaving little room for growth. Opener “Condemning The Bloodline” is a ten-ton explosion of heaviness that is a strong start, but the rest of the album copies this ten times over, with only clean vocals and the occasional acoustic interlude to break things up.

The songs stick around the four-minute mark, brief enough to get in and out with limited damage. One of the highlights is “The Rebirth,” which abandons this format and pushes past five minutes for a mini-epic that shows unrealized potential. The long melodic guitar solo is an unexpected treat, working alongside the steady feet of drummer Derek Jay. Jay’s playing is a pleasure to hear, as his varied beats keep things interesting during even the most mundane moments.

With a lot of metalcore, there is no urge to go back and listen to it again. The replay value is limited, a condition that God Grant Me Vengeance suffers from. One listen is really all that is needed; multiple plays don’t expose a hidden side of Hell Within. Everything about this album screams modern metal, from the pristine production to the horrible gang chants randomly interspersed in the album.

Listening to God Grant Me Vengeance is like getting a case of déjà vu for 45 minutes. Nothing in it is original or worth bringing up to curious bystanders. Hell Within is a group of solid musicians that know how to write songs, which is enough for their third album to avoid the bargain bin. Metalcore fanatics will find this to be appropriately brutal and catchy enough to pick up, though the lack of substance may turn some off.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.