Many great rock bands have come out of Seattle. Jimi Hendrix was born there. Queensryche are from there, and so are Metal Church. Also the popular grunge rock bands like Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and probably more. The metal core band, Demon Hunter, also hail from Seattle. This is the debut album from this American quintet.

The vocals alternate from a yelling style to a nice(clean) singing style, that is typical with other American metal core bands(Trivium, Shadows Fall). Vocalist Ryan Clark and guitarist Don Clark are brothers. The lyrics seem to be about the problems that people encounter in their lives and growing up(maturing).

It's obvious that they're influenced by the Seattle grunge music of the '90's. A few of the songs have borrowed rhythms from the Alice In Chains song, Would?. A couple of other songs sound influenced by Nirvana, especially the clean vocals that sound similar to Kurt Cobain, at times. They've infused the prettier elements of grunge into the more brutal sound of death metal. Their sound is also very modern, there is some cool technical guitar playing in the song, I Have Seen Where It Grows.

Many of the songs seem to be structered similarly to the style of Nine Inch Nails or Disturbed. But sometimes it gets a bit too cheesey for my taste. Like on the last 2 songs, A Broken Upper Hand, and The Gauntlet. The vocals on these 2 songs sound sugary sweet and The Gauntlet sounds fit for FM radio play. Aside from those 2 songs, the rest of the album rocks with enough ugliness.

Fans of Trivium and Shadows Fall should enjoy this album. But don't expect to hear a lot of intricate shredding, expect to hear trendy thrashing, highlighted with some nice grunge style singing.