A Chorus of Obliteration — The Showdown

A Chorus of Obliteration is the debut album by the Showdown, a five-piece metal band from Elizabethton, Tennessee. Mono vs Stereo, an imprint of Gotee Records, released it on November 16, 2004. It's ten songs and about three-quarters of an hour long, and most of those songs retell a story from the Bible. If you've ever wanted to hear David and Goliath told through twin guitar harmonies and a Southern rock breakdown, this is the record.

Where it came from

The lineup is David Bunton on vocals, Josh Childers and Travis Bailey on guitars, Eric Koruschak on bass and Andrew Hall on drums. They'd turned up on the label's compilation The Revolution Will Begin, and Mono vs Stereo signed them in 2003. The album was recorded at Island Bound Studio in Nashville, with extra recording at Glow in the Dark Studios in Atlanta, and Living Sacrifice frontman Bruce Fitzhugh produced it. Fitzhugh also sings on "Dagon Undone (The Reckoning)," and Josh Scogin, then fronting The Chariot, guests on "From the Mouth of Gath Comes Terror."

The band never hid what drove them. Bunton told Cross Rhythms that "our faith is definitely a big part of our life," and that the band was "really, really interested in the battles of life and the victories through Christ." That's the whole album in one sentence.

What it sounds like

It's metal first, and it's not shy about it. The guitars lean hard on the Swedish melodic death metal sound, with harmonised leads and fast picking, but there's thrash in there, some metalcore chugging and a real streak of Southern rock. The vocals run from low growls to throaty screams to clean singing on the choruses.

"A Monument Encased in Ash" opens the album with nearly six minutes on the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah. Josh Taylor at Jesus Freak Hideout wrote about "the minute-and-a-half long intro" before Bunton's "screams and gutteral growls finally emerge." It sets the template, a big intro, a pounding verse, a chorus you can shout and a groove-heavy breakdown.

"Epic: A Chorus of Obliteration" is the title song, and it's about the walls of Jericho. The chorus is a call to arms, "Loose Your voice and split the sky," and it's one of the catchiest things on the record. "From the Mouth of Gath Comes Terror" is the David and Goliath song, and at six and a half minutes it's the longest. It's also the best. Scogin's guest spot adds a ragged edge, and the middle section swings into a Southern metal breakdown with a real Pantera swagger.

"Dagon Undone (The Reckoning)" takes on Samson and Delilah, with Fitzhugh guesting on vocals. "Iscariot" is the most direct song here, a fast, hooky track about Judas that's over in under three minutes. Then come two short bookends, "Dolor Per Proelium (Your Name Is Defeat)" and "Deus Invictus (Your Name Is Victory)." The first is the most brutal thing here, all blast beats and stop-start riffs. The second answers it.

The album closes with "Laid to Rest," which starts as an acoustic piece with cello before it breaks into one last heavy section. It's the song that splits people the most.

What the critics said

Critics were mostly impressed, and the praise came from both Christian and mainstream metal writers. Jesus Freak Hideout's Taylor called it a "brilliant first effort" and wrote that "never have I heard such a boldness in the lyrics of an album." He called the Showdown "one of the best new acts of the year."

Tony Cummings at Cross Rhythms was shorter and just as keen. He heard "plenty of fret-flying guitar solos with songs often building to epic climaxes" and a vocalist "whose extraordinary growls will scorch the wallpaper off your bedroom walls." He called it "a good debut."

Over at Lambgoat, a mainstream hardcore and metal site, Jhonn Thomassen gave it 9/10. He praised the band's "ability to seamlessly mix American metal, Euro death and black metal, Southern rock, and hardcore/metalcore" and called it "truly an almost perfect release." He did admit that "the 'nice' singing can get on my nerves at times."

Ramar Pittance at Last Rites praised the storytelling and pointed out that "The Showdown are the 'good guys.'" He said the story is told "from the perspective of a band of warriors fighting for the light." He wasn't a fan of the closer, though. He found "Laid to Rest" to be "a somewhat unsavory dose of sappy sentimentality" but still called the album "a commendable release." A later review at Metalrage gave it 83/100 and heard echoes of Trivium's Ascendancy, and that reviewer actually liked "Laid to Rest," calling it "a good song that even fits the album."

The band themselves were more modest. Ahead of their second album, Koruschak told HM magazine, as Cross Rhythms reported, that "the last record was basically a collection of riffs separated into songs."

What it's about

This is about as openly Christian as metal gets. Song after song takes a Bible story and plays it as a battle, with God's people on the winning side. Jesus Freak Hideout put it plainly, saying "there is nothing cryptic at all" about it. What stops it from feeling like a Sunday school lesson is that the band writes like storytellers. Last Rites noted that the Showdown "mostly avoid any morality tales and Bible thumping and basically stick to the story."

Koruschak told Cross Rhythms that most of the band's sales actually came from outside the Christian market, and that "we get a lot of backlash about our faith from the metal scene." The band kept going anyway. Century Media reissued the album in Europe in late 2006 with a bonus track, "Give Us This Day," and Mono vs Stereo released Temptation Come My Way in February 2007. That summer the band played Ozzfest's second stage.

The verdict

A Chorus of Obliteration is a strong debut from a band that knew exactly what it wanted to be. The riffs are sharp, the choruses stick and "From the Mouth of Gath Comes Terror" is one of the best Christian metal songs of its decade. Koruschak wasn't wrong, though. Some of the songs do feel like great riffs stitched together, the clean vocals aren't always as strong as the screams, and the formula gets a bit familiar by the back half. Still, for a first album recorded on a small label, it hits hard and it means every word.

7/10

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