They're a good band, and I enjoyed their first two albums when they came out, but somewhere along the way I found myself drifting away from their music, with the exception of their comedic holiday output. Those tracks get listened to every December, and have yet to get old.
Part of that is my relationship with power metal growing tired over the years, but just as much there's part of that which comes down to what the band's very name entails. For a band named after a system of life where religion is put in control, it's hard for me to shake the connotations that entails, not the least of which because those who most loudly promote Christianity these days seem to have never heard a word their savior said.
Looking at the titles of the tracks on this record, with mentions of sin, deification, messiahs, and the Red Sea, it's once again a record that puts Matt Smith's spiritual beliefs front-and-center. He does it in slightly different fashion this time, with a record that aims to be heavier and thrashier than usual. That's an interesting choice to make, because Theocracy's appeal has (at least for me) never been in their guitar playing, but rather in Smith's massive chorus. Going back, a song like "Laying The Demon To Rest" off their second album was as heavy as anything they've ever done, but what made the song an enduring favorite was the anthemic chorus.
By focusing on a more thrash-like approach with the instrumentals, the songs are written in a way that takes away some of what makes the band as good as they can be. Faster and more wiry guitar lines don't give the same amount of space to weave melodies, and the songs suffer for that. That also comes down to some of the production choices, like in the title track, where Smith saves the backing vocals to highlight only the last phrase of each couplet. The song would sound bigger, and I think the chorus would be more effective, if it had the choir of voices amplifying the whole thing. It might also mask some of the grammar, where it ends with him saying, "We are mosaic." Um... shouldn't it either say 'we are mosaics', or 'we are a mosaic'? It sounds awkward the way he sings it.
But at least that song tries to have a melody. "Sinsidious" goes all-in on being heavy, so much so the chorus is almost a flat bark. That was the fear I had when they said there was more of a thrash influence, and it came to bear. It might have a good message, but it's hard for it to land when the song itself is so tuneless. It's the sort of song that I, if I was a producer, would have tossed aside before ever starting to record.
Ultimately, this record is not going to win me back over to Theocracy's side. There was a reason I lost track of them over the previous few records, and it's on display again with this one. The first two albums featured a few songs on each that were inescapably hooky. I can still hum a couple of them back right now, despite having not heard those albums in years. There isn't a single melody on this record I can do that with right after it's done playing. For being a melodic power metal band, there just isn't enough strong and memorable melody on display here. These songs lack that killer instinct to sink their claws into me.
If I want to listen to Theocracy, it's either the Christmas music, or the first two albums. They stand far above where we are right now.
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