Granted, Night Storms Hailfire is an improvement from the debut album as the band have made a Years of Desolation like shift into almost pure thrash core realms with a dirtier, grittier sound and even injected some sickly slower material, but even with those changes, the album just seems a raucous exercise in over done thrash dynamics and a forced attempt to distance themselves from the metal core scene and sound.

That all being said, I do appreciate the bands attempt to be much less of typical Victory band and the more hurly burly structures and earthier production do make for an energetic, frenetic listen but it lacks the pure feral intensity of say, the recent Hellmouth. Still, tracks like rollicking opener “Forever Damned”, “Bring the Rain”, “Doom Sentence”, the appropriately titled “Thrashburn”, “Brothers in Arms” and “This is War” do have a primal, furious energy and presence, especially barking vocalist Ryan Bauchman, that goes against everything metalcore or Victory based.

However, with a few of the tracks, “A Heavy Dose”, the title track , as well as somber instrumental “The Aftermath”, the band take a longer more sludgy approach and it works much better and has much more identity than the energetic but forgetful thrashing. I could have done without the few minutes of silence that appears in closer “The Long Haul” before the grindcore hidden track.

Still, along with the releases by Within the Ruins and Wretched, Night Storms Hailfire shows Victory Records hasn’t completely forgotten about metal yet.

Canada’s Arise and Ruin are not bringing anything new to the table with their mix of Unearth (Ken Susi produced this effort), The Black Dahlia Murder and Poison the Well with countless other metalcore influences with a ‘real metal’ exterior but like say the recent release from Sons of Azrael, the lack of originality is somewhat made up for with decent song writing and a level of energy that makes this a solid middle tier effort.

The Susi production is stout, highlighting the many more metal based, resonating breakdowns (“Bound By Blood”, “The Final Dawn”) and cantering, melodic, yet sharp riffage (“End of the Road”, “To The Grind”, “Unbound”), backed by Ryan Buachman’s croon free stern rasp and growl. But ultimately it still sounds (both production and song wise) like so many other bands out there today plying the same style, though to their credits Arise and Ruin’s debut is one of the above average attempts.

Not great but not bad, and of Victory’s 3 recent ‘metal’ releases (Nights Like These, The Autumn Offering) Arise and Ruin has had the most playing time with me, though in 3 weeks it likely to be gone from my memory.