It has been two years (feels like more) since I posted my review of Phinehas' third album, Till the End, which marked the first time I wrote/posted a full review of an album. I absolutely loved Till the End, it was an amazing album, but it did depart from the band's traditional side in favor of a heavier, darker feel. The darkness and heaviness was extremely well-done and enjoyable but I did find that I missed many of those "wow" moments with the beautiful, catchy melodies and guitar shredding. In the band's fourth album, Dark Flag, all of that makes a triumphant return showcasing Phinehas' most refined, hard-hitting sound to date.
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Mini-PSA: If you like what I say in this review, or like what you hear in samples of the album, please buy the album! Streaming services like Spotify are good for exposure but when fans start streaming music only, the band gets very little financial support. These guys keep expenses very low so they can deliver affordable shows, merch and music; please be a good person and support them!
TL;DR Rating: 10/10 [TOP-NOTCH]
Dark Flag is a loose concept album based around the atrocities committed by the Kim Dynasty of North Korea, and the timing couldn't be better. With the tensions surrounding the West's condemnation of these atrocities comes a hatred for the nation's leader, Kim Jong-Un, and a massive disregard for the innocent people of the nation. What we tend to forget, as Christians, is that God has performed miracles among nations' kings and leaders, changing their hearts and guiding them to lead their people back to Him. Not only that, but this album serves to scream a call for a modern-day leader like Moses to rise up and affect change on the nation, perhaps by leading God's people out of the bondage to persecution that happens daily over there. However, the album isn't only dedicated to this theme. It also carries over quite a few themes from the previous album, including the themes of learning that death is not final and that for those who come to salvation through Christ, they never truly die in the first place.
To complement such deep, complex lyrical themes, the music needs to be equally deep and complex. Thankfully, what we have on this album is a plethora of sounds across Phinehas' entire career, along with new elements they've never really used before. You'll naturally hear the heavier, more straight-forward edge of Till the End, but you also hear the more melodic and even the more melodic and even Southern metal ("Break the Earth") elements of The Last Word is Yours to Speak along with the more artsy and progressive metal-inspired bits present on their debut, Thegodmachine. In addition to the classic Phinehas sounds, we hear a little ambiance and a few riffs that strongly remind me of modern prog kings, Periphery. Guitarist Daniel Gailey (Becoming the Archetype) proved on Till the End that he could emulate the Phinehas guitar sound left by previous Phinehas guitarists like Jason Combs and Glenn Gizzi but on Dark Flag, he cranks it up to 11. He successfully carries over the sounds present on the previous albums while introducing some proggier elements and even a few ambient elements. The solos are as amazing as ever with plenty of melodic complexity measured with face-melting shredding, and the rhythm riffs are heavier than ever before. While Phinehas is a metalcore band that doesn't focus on breakdowns, they do use them in their music when it makes sense. The breakdowns on this album are easily their most hard-hitting, making you feel like someone threw a cinderblock at you and you actually enjoyed it.
Guitars aren't the only place where this band shines, however. Something I noticed about Dark Flag vs. Till the End is that on Till the End, the bass was mixed well but wasn't very punchy. It served to thicken the heaviness of the riffs but wasn't overly present. However, on this album, Bryce Kelley not only plays heavier, but the bass lines are much more prevalent. Not so much as to drown out the beauty of the guitar melodies or anything of the like, but just enough to make things feel heavier and more hard-hitting. And while Till the End had some bass drops, particularly preceding breakdowns, Dark Flag uses them even more than that. You'll hear them integrated in situations where you may not even expect them, but they add to that emphasis on technicality, progression and heaviness. However, that heaviness wouldn't mean much if not for solid drumming. Sadly, Dark Flag is the final Phinehas album with original drummer, Lee Humerian, but one advantage to him knowing that he was leaving the band after this album was that he was able to truly dive in head-first and give this album his all. If you know Phinehas, you know that Lee always gives it his all, but he gave that statement a new meaning for this album by delivering his most technical, solid performance to date. The drums on this album sound thunderous, like the wrath of heaven against a regime constantly playing God. If you pay attention to the background details, you might notice that he uses subtleties and unique drum fills to further add to an already complex, technical formula and that's part of why I consider him to be one of the best drummers of all time. Lee, if you're reading this review, know that all of us will certainly miss you!
Then we come to the vocals. Sean McCulloch is easily my favorite metalcore vocalist and one of my favorite vocalists altogether. His range is phenomenal, both in harsh and clean vocals. He's able go from a lionish, roaring low to a gentle, delicate singing, back to a monstrous shriek and go on to agonized tonal screams/solid distorted singing, all in the course of a single song. Two of my favorite things that Sean does are his high shrieks and his tonal screaming. It was most prevalent on The Last Word is Yours to Speak but unfortunately, almost entirely missing from Till the End (though we did get a lot more lows in their place). Thankfully, he brought both back quite a bit more this time around. They're not as prevalent as they were on The Last Word... but they're present enough to add that final piece to the formula that made this album incredible. Sean stated something about basically re-learning how to be a vocalist for this album and you can certainly see that in the way he approaches this album. He's more proficient with his instrument than ever and delivers the amazing, passionate lyrics with conviction that's rare even for the metalcore genre. Whether in softer songs like "A War That Never Ends" and "Meaningless Names", or in heavier tracks like "I Saw the Bombs Fall", "Hell Below" and "Communion for Ravens", he sings/screams perfectly to capture the emotions that the lyrics and music are trying to deliver. For the most part, the kind of vocal work that he does on this album is the same as he's always done, but he did further expand his range. On Till the End, he did a few lows (namely in "Tetelestai") that were so guttural that they could be compared to the lows present in the deathcore genre. This album actually ends with some of those lows, but I won't spoil how they're used as that particular moment is one of those "What on earth did I just hear???" moments that leaves your jaw on the floor.
While on the subject of vocals, I need to take a bit of time to discuss the lyrics. Phinehas has always had brilliant lyrics that I rank with Theocracy and Silent Planet in terms of pure poetic mastery. As I stated earlier in this review, the album is a loose concept album centered around the atrocities committed by Kim Jong-Un's autocratic regime over North Korea. However, the lyrics are often written with a double meaning. The themes range from personal struggles, to finding the courage to rise up and achieve the purpose God has for us, to calling out the greed and hatred of mankind and so forth. I noticed that the flow of the lyrics this album had some elements present in Silent Planet's work, and knowing how strong the friendship between the two bands is, it doesn't surprise me. It's definitely not a bad thing.
Altogether, this album blew me away. I know Phinehas is always capable of doing that but there was just something in me that somewhat made me wonder if they could blow me away a third time. I'm thankful that they did. I am proudly a fan of this band and I will be for life. Their unique, technically-proficient brand of metalcore, along with their amazing lyrics and incredible musicianship makes them stand out so much in a genre that is typically rather samey. They drew on their previous material as well as a few new outside influences, while further polishing their great sound. While I still think Thegodmachine did the finale better overall (I consider "Grace Disguised by Darkness" until "That I May Love You" to be one massive finale track), and it had a few more "classic" Phinehas moments, Dark Flag topped their previous albums in nearly every other way to give us what may go down as their greatest release in their career. I recommend all of their albums but this album is literally the album that I've been hoping for from these guys.
To complement such deep, complex lyrical themes, the music needs to be equally deep and complex. Thankfully, what we have on this album is a plethora of sounds across Phinehas' entire career, along with new elements they've never really used before. You'll naturally hear the heavier, more straight-forward edge of Till the End, but you also hear the more melodic and even the more melodic and even Southern metal ("Break the Earth") elements of The Last Word is Yours to Speak along with the more artsy and progressive metal-inspired bits present on their debut, Thegodmachine. In addition to the classic Phinehas sounds, we hear a little ambiance and a few riffs that strongly remind me of modern prog kings, Periphery. Guitarist Daniel Gailey (Becoming the Archetype) proved on Till the End that he could emulate the Phinehas guitar sound left by previous Phinehas guitarists like Jason Combs and Glenn Gizzi but on Dark Flag, he cranks it up to 11. He successfully carries over the sounds present on the previous albums while introducing some proggier elements and even a few ambient elements. The solos are as amazing as ever with plenty of melodic complexity measured with face-melting shredding, and the rhythm riffs are heavier than ever before. While Phinehas is a metalcore band that doesn't focus on breakdowns, they do use them in their music when it makes sense. The breakdowns on this album are easily their most hard-hitting, making you feel like someone threw a cinderblock at you and you actually enjoyed it.
Guitars aren't the only place where this band shines, however. Something I noticed about Dark Flag vs. Till the End is that on Till the End, the bass was mixed well but wasn't very punchy. It served to thicken the heaviness of the riffs but wasn't overly present. However, on this album, Bryce Kelley not only plays heavier, but the bass lines are much more prevalent. Not so much as to drown out the beauty of the guitar melodies or anything of the like, but just enough to make things feel heavier and more hard-hitting. And while Till the End had some bass drops, particularly preceding breakdowns, Dark Flag uses them even more than that. You'll hear them integrated in situations where you may not even expect them, but they add to that emphasis on technicality, progression and heaviness. However, that heaviness wouldn't mean much if not for solid drumming. Sadly, Dark Flag is the final Phinehas album with original drummer, Lee Humerian, but one advantage to him knowing that he was leaving the band after this album was that he was able to truly dive in head-first and give this album his all. If you know Phinehas, you know that Lee always gives it his all, but he gave that statement a new meaning for this album by delivering his most technical, solid performance to date. The drums on this album sound thunderous, like the wrath of heaven against a regime constantly playing God. If you pay attention to the background details, you might notice that he uses subtleties and unique drum fills to further add to an already complex, technical formula and that's part of why I consider him to be one of the best drummers of all time. Lee, if you're reading this review, know that all of us will certainly miss you!
Then we come to the vocals. Sean McCulloch is easily my favorite metalcore vocalist and one of my favorite vocalists altogether. His range is phenomenal, both in harsh and clean vocals. He's able go from a lionish, roaring low to a gentle, delicate singing, back to a monstrous shriek and go on to agonized tonal screams/solid distorted singing, all in the course of a single song. Two of my favorite things that Sean does are his high shrieks and his tonal screaming. It was most prevalent on The Last Word is Yours to Speak but unfortunately, almost entirely missing from Till the End (though we did get a lot more lows in their place). Thankfully, he brought both back quite a bit more this time around. They're not as prevalent as they were on The Last Word... but they're present enough to add that final piece to the formula that made this album incredible. Sean stated something about basically re-learning how to be a vocalist for this album and you can certainly see that in the way he approaches this album. He's more proficient with his instrument than ever and delivers the amazing, passionate lyrics with conviction that's rare even for the metalcore genre. Whether in softer songs like "A War That Never Ends" and "Meaningless Names", or in heavier tracks like "I Saw the Bombs Fall", "Hell Below" and "Communion for Ravens", he sings/screams perfectly to capture the emotions that the lyrics and music are trying to deliver. For the most part, the kind of vocal work that he does on this album is the same as he's always done, but he did further expand his range. On Till the End, he did a few lows (namely in "Tetelestai") that were so guttural that they could be compared to the lows present in the deathcore genre. This album actually ends with some of those lows, but I won't spoil how they're used as that particular moment is one of those "What on earth did I just hear???" moments that leaves your jaw on the floor.
While on the subject of vocals, I need to take a bit of time to discuss the lyrics. Phinehas has always had brilliant lyrics that I rank with Theocracy and Silent Planet in terms of pure poetic mastery. As I stated earlier in this review, the album is a loose concept album centered around the atrocities committed by Kim Jong-Un's autocratic regime over North Korea. However, the lyrics are often written with a double meaning. The themes range from personal struggles, to finding the courage to rise up and achieve the purpose God has for us, to calling out the greed and hatred of mankind and so forth. I noticed that the flow of the lyrics this album had some elements present in Silent Planet's work, and knowing how strong the friendship between the two bands is, it doesn't surprise me. It's definitely not a bad thing.
Altogether, this album blew me away. I know Phinehas is always capable of doing that but there was just something in me that somewhat made me wonder if they could blow me away a third time. I'm thankful that they did. I am proudly a fan of this band and I will be for life. Their unique, technically-proficient brand of metalcore, along with their amazing lyrics and incredible musicianship makes them stand out so much in a genre that is typically rather samey. They drew on their previous material as well as a few new outside influences, while further polishing their great sound. While I still think Thegodmachine did the finale better overall (I consider "Grace Disguised by Darkness" until "That I May Love You" to be one massive finale track), and it had a few more "classic" Phinehas moments, Dark Flag topped their previous albums in nearly every other way to give us what may go down as their greatest release in their career. I recommend all of their albums but this album is literally the album that I've been hoping for from these guys.
Highlights:
- Burning Bright *
- I Saw the Bombs Fall
- Hell Below
- Break the Earth
- Communion for Ravens
- Know Death; Know Forever
* - Burning Bright was my favorite song on the album, though all the songs were great. It had a very progressive, early Periphery feel in the main riff, lots of background ambiance (noticed easily if you have a good stereo or headphones), a soaring chorus and the breakdowns fit perfectly.