October Rage Fallout, Dust and Guns Review by Gary Hill
I’ve included this in the metal category. It has a lot of modern metal in the mix. I can see people arguing with it landing there, but really, given a lot of nu-metal, I can’t see putting it anywhere else. This set is quite good no matter what you call it, though.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2015 Volume 1 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Valkyrie
Alternative rock, numetal and more merge here. The chorus is rather catchy and melodic, but the song overall is raw, heavy and fast paced.
Signal Fire
Piano starts this. The cut is more or less an epic metal power-ballad. It’s packed with emotion, but not a lot of raw power. It does rock out a bit more later, but it’s still less about fearsome power and more about the power of emotion and melody. This is a great piece of music. In fact, it might be my favorite cut here.
End of Days I love the riff driven energy of this rocker. It’s less of a nu-metal tune than the opener was, but still doesn’t land in the real steel category. There is a lot of hard edged alternative rock built into this beast. It also works out toward symphonic epic metal later in the track, too.
Heart of Stone Another that lands in the neighborhood of power-ballad, this really doesn’t have much metal at all. It seems to be built on an alternative rock interpretation of psychedelically tinged music. It’s a great tune. It’s just not the crunchiest thing here. Still, it does get some metallic edges built into it at points.
White Walkers This starts with a bit of an epic metal kind of sound, but turns out into the most purely metal thing here. There are still elements of epic metal in terms of some of the layers over the top. There are also some definite nods to alternative rock and nu-metal here. Still, this is a dynamic and powerful tune that’s one of the best here.
