If you’re tired of giving up the shred-your-face-off quality of hardcore in order to find music that carries truth, your days of compromise are over.

Toarn is a five piece hardcore/metal outfit from Seattle with a heart for sharing the gospel through every crushing guitar riff they deliver. The band’s latest, Brood of Vipers, captures that dynamic well throughout each of the six tracks.

“The Blood Has Been Shed” opens the collection with a steady build into the first hammering riff. Toarn opts for scratched melodies and thunderous growls here and throughout the album, leaving clean vocals by the wayside. “Lions Become Lambs” follows it up with a driving tempo and thick, layered guitar tones. The lyrics of the song begin pleading “is this all we are? Trying to find a sense of satisfaction” and resolve with the declaration of the chorus “when lions become lambs, I find who I am.” The bridge breaks down to spoken vocals, providing a momentary change in pace perfectly timed to hold the listener's attention.

Title track “Brood of Vipers” is pure brutality, leaning heavily on fast metalcore drum stylings and a buzzing guitar sound almost reminiscent of a snake’s hiss. This song also features a well-structured breakdown amidst the intensity, pulling off some genre trademarks with intentionality without resorting to overly-contrived conventions. “Something About Your Name” takes the familiar phrase and prayer from the faith tradition and sings it through a different lens, proving again that music can be both worshipful and brutal in the same musical moment.

“Separation of Body/Mind” takes a fairly straight-up metal approach musically, blending high scratch vocals and deep growls to create a theme of an intense fight to be freed. One of the highlights of the collection comes at the end with “Bloodstained Love Story,” which makes beautiful use of a clean dual guitar intro to lend a sharpness and a poignancy to the track from the first riffs. Although the guitar work remains a strong point throughout, the lyrics hold their own as well, screaming out what could be a cornerstone phrase of the project as a whole: “oh my God, it is impossible to walk this path on my own.”

Closing Thoughts:
Though Toarn is still a new face to the Christian metal scene, they’re certainly coming out of the gate fighting. Brood of Vipers serves up a rock solid dose of blistering riffage and gritty vocals, tempered by a humble, human presentation of the gospel. Although some of the songs might benefit from a little more musical breathing room, overall the album showcases well a band coming into their own.

Song to Download:
"Brood of Vipers"