Avatar, Hunter Gatherer: Album Review!

Avatar's eight studio album was released on Friday, coming at arguably the biggest the Swedish band have ever been, commercially. Being a pretty big fan of the band for the last few years now, especially of their excellent live performances, I'm excited to be checking this out and seeing if they can continue their run of form!

Opening hard and heavy with the first single from the album, Silence in the Age of Apes, Avatar pick up right where they left off with the chunky, groovy riffs. A typically huge chorus follows a great riff but what really sticks out to me in this track, and the album as a whole, is John Alfredsson drumming, not only hard hitting but technical and fast too, really adding a lot to the song whenever he's allowed to do his thing.

Next up is the most recent single, Colossus. While still just as heavy, it is considerably slower than the track before. It is brooding and plodding, staying at around the same level throughout the song but doing it well.

Then comes easily the most contentious song on the album, for me at least. While I have seen a lot of love for A Secret Door online, after a few listens I'm still not sure how I feel about it. As always, I am a sucker for some Axl-Rose-style whistling, and the clearly Iron Maiden inspired verse is beautifully performed from all member of the band, the song seems to immediately become jumbled when the distorted riff kicks in. That's not to say the riff isn’t good, it is, it just doesn’t feel like it fits with the rest of the song, leaving the chorus to feel disjointed. I wanted so much to like this song as the clean verses are a real highlight of the album, but as a whole I couldn’t get into it.

Following on from this we get the second single, God of Sick Dreams, and Scream Until you Wake. Both are good, heavy, if slightly forgettable songs lost towards the middle of the album. While generally I would be praising them highly and talking about them more, there are so many more talking points to this album that these tracks get lost a little in the shuffle. Good songs in the album, but nothing to write home about.

A return to form for me followed with the track Child. The verse for this reminding me of the Avatar of old, close to the theatrical sounds of The Eagle has Landed that Avatar do so well, and it keeps in fitting with their look and stage show. It also kept the heavy feel, something that has been great throughout the album.

Justice is another fast, heavy song. It starts out feeling a little similar to previous songs on the album, the solo soon kicked in and blew me away, followed by a stripped back breakdown which I loved.

Next followed by far my two favourite songs on the album. The simple piano ballad, Gun, was so beautifully written and had such profound lyrics that it captured my attention throughout, making me want to see it live so much. Contrast that to the heaviest song on the album, When All but Force has Failed, it fit together surprisingly well and pushed the album back towards a heavy crescendo. The latter song is maybe my favourite song on the album, a brutal hardcore/thrash track which doesn’t let up for a second in it’s under 3-minute runtime, all crushing riffs and crazy solos.

Finally, Wormhole closes out the album with one hell of a great, interesting riff, tuned down massively low. However, the verses were average lyrically and the chorus just felt like a rethread of Colossus, not the best when it's on the same album!

Overall, the album felt a lot better individually than the sum of its parts. There are some incredible songs in here, all performed to perfection by the amazingly talented band. However, there are definitely some slight lows in here and, generally in my opinion, the back half was stronger than the first, an odd thing to say when the first half contains all the singles!

Overall verdict: 7.5/10