Artist: Kingdom Of Giants

Album: Ground Culture

Genre: Metalcore

Label: InVogue Records

I have enjoyed listening to Kingdom Of Giants for a few years now. Though I do like their EP and debut full-length, they weren’t a band that I thought I’d consider “best of the year” material. It’s nothing against them personally – I love their music, I was just never stunned by it. That has changed though, as they absolutely destroyed my impression of them with Ground Culture. Dana switched up his singing style and the instruments have a more full, well-rounded sound. It’s apparent from the first verse that these guys are ready to impress their fans.

Where do I begin? Let’s start with what’s easy – the first track. Ground Culture opens up with “Lion’s Mouth.” This song sets the stage for what we can expect from the rest of the tracks on the album. The band plows through it at breakneck speeds, which is something they keep up for most of the rest of the album. If you’ve listened to their previous albums, you will notice right away that there has been an improvement on both the clean and unclean vocals.

“Eternal Burn” is the next track on the album. It also happens to be one of my favorites. In fact, I’m torn between “Eternal Burn” and “Sky Burial” being my absolute favorite track. They both seem to have very personal lyrics, and they both have something unique to offer that helps them stand apart from everything else. The lyrics in “Eternal Burn” question religion, and suggest that we should all just be living for love. “Sky Burial,” on the other hand, has a great lyrical section that is a huge reason I love this song. When it comes down to it, they are both solid tracks that stand out amongst the others.

If you listen to the lyrical content of each track, you can easily spot a continuous theme throughout the record. The lyrics tackle questioning religious faith, understanding our own mortality and dealing with the loss of close family members. I think these themes are easily relatable, especially for our generation, which is one of the least religious generations ever. The desire to achieve more in life is something we can all understand.

“Endure” and “Ground Culture” are the two singles they first released for fans. These are two of the best tracks on the album, and if you’ve listened to them already they speak for themselves. Even though “Virtue” is more of a intermission than a song, it’s still pretty fun to listen to. It’s a modified sound clip of Charlie Chaplin’s endlessly relevant speech from The Great Dictator. It’s set to a piano and drums, then closes out with Dana contemplating his place on this world. It sums up the overarching theme of the album quite well.

While the album mostly focuses on vocals, there is plenty to look forward to as far as the technical aspects are concerned. Songs like “Sky Burial” and “Endure” have some pretty killer guitar parts that complement what’s going on with the rest of the band. They do like to use some breakdowns, as most metalcore bands do, but they don’t heavily rely on that aspect of the song to make it a “good song.” It’s simply an element of their sound, and not the defining feature of their talent.

Ground Culture wraps up with “Afterglow,” featuring Rory Rodriguez of Dayseeker. His voice fits perfectly with the lyrical content of the track. He has a unique style, and the verses he sings fit perfectly with the rest of the song. The song is about death, reconciling one’s own mortality and the struggling with finding faith after the loss of family members. It’s a solid note to end an album on.

This band has significantly raised the bar with this album. I almost hate to say it, but their clean vocalist leaving was easily the best thing that happened to them. Dana taking on both unclean and clean vocals created a more balanced sound. Rezza’s voice was simply too high and wouldn’t have been usable with the direction they have taken on this album. Ground Culture is definitely in my top favorite albums released so far this year. My biggest complaint is that this album has only 10 tracks, and is less than 40 minutes in length.

I’m excited to see such an improvement from one release to another, and can’t wait to watch them continue to grow as a band.

SCORE: 9/10

Review written by Kriston McConnell