Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

All art is subjective, one person’s Medieval pious statue is another’s form of intolerance and exploitation, one person’s take on Michelangelo’s gift to the Vatican and the Pope can fill them with wonder, another will look upon it and witness not creation but decadence and human objectivity; it is in perhaps these conflicting emotions that the surging emotions of Holy War are seeded.

For Australian Death Core Metal band Thy Art Is Murder, Holy War is an album that may alienate many, some just on the basis of the speed and growling fortitude that the music is played with but also for the misconception that surrounds such titles and profoundly interesting lyrics. Yet scratch beneath the surface of CJ McMahon’s blistering and infectious discharge and what comes apparent is a band showing that they simply have only contempt for anything that declares a war in the name of whichever saviour the religion of the country dictates. Artwork inspired by a pious nature, no matter the creed or orientation is to be seen as laudable, the seeking of destruction of such artefacts, of imposing your belief, no matter the way or direction you kneel in, is to be seen as arguably abhorrent.

The quickening pulse, the steam of passionate beat upon beat, layered and covered in everything you would expect from such great musical artistry is enough to leave the listener breathless, exhausted as if having catalogued all the religious works, all the iconography of art in the world and shifted them on your own into a place of safety and then locking some of them away so Humanity could not be influenced by their message of hate and intolerance.

The album is relentless, it never seems to pause for breath and the songs just get faster and more poignant as it goes on. Tracks such as Absolute Genocide, Coffin Dragger, Deliver Us To Evil and Child Of Sorrow not only capture the effects of certain messages strewn about like confetti as serial haters ply their trade often in secret to impressionable minds, Hell bent on causing damage and mayhem, but they also sing of what could be instead, the message may get lost in the heat and stark reality but at all times you have got to just live and let live.

Holy War may have been signalled but it is one that never takes a life, never maims or destructs, it just heralds a set of great songs that fit perfectly in the Death Core Metal genre.

Ian D. Hall