Album Review - There Was A Light Here Posted September 19, 2025 By JJFrancesco_NRT, Staff Reviewer
What You Need To Know Demon Hunter is probably one of the most iconic and well-known bands in Christian metal. They're legit legends. After decades of releasing music on Solid State Records, 2022 found them venturing out on their own label (as so many veterans have done of late), Weapons MFG. 2022's Exile was a concept album that found the band embracing their most accessible material to date, but at the cost of alienating some of their fans of their more hardcore styles. After a few years of releasing standalone singles (including the hauntingly beautiful "Black Stained Glass") that were leftover from the Exile sessions, they began releasing songs from a new project over the summer. This has culminated in the release of their 12th full-length album, There Was A Light Here.
What It Sounds Like There Was A Light Here is arguably the band's most balanced project to date. Known for their striking contrast of intense metal and uplifting melodies, Demon Hunter has always been a band bridging two musical worlds. Within the same song, frontman Ryan Clark could belt out monstrous growls and screams before segueing into the catchiest of power choruses. Clark's vocals are iconic. Whether he's going hard or going soft, they imbue every Demon Hunter song with a signature style that instantly tells you from the first note that this is Demon Hunter.
While the band has always included two or three songs per album with entirely (or mostly) clean (non-screamed) vocals, the band's been increasingly leaning into this side of themselves since 2014's Extremist. In 2022, they released Exile, in which the songs without prominent screaming dominated the majority of the tracklist. (Not unlike the Peace counterpart to 2019's War) While many hailed the dystopian-themed concept album as a masterpiece, other fans felt the band had strayed too far from their roots.
There Was A Light Here takes a decided step toward their edgier material, but without forsaking the strides they've made in the hard rock scene for their clean-vocaled rock hits this past decade. The result is an evenly split project more akin to 2017's Outlive.
Vicious opener "My Place In The Dirt" starts calmly enough with a soft rock intro before the metal riffs and Clark's signature growls come barrelling through like a freight train. Demon Hunter is known for opening albums with a barnburning burst of energy, and "My Place in the Dirt" ensures this tradition endures. This one and mid-album romp "Ouroboros" will surely satisfy fans of the band's grittier side.
The band's signature tradeoff between screamed verses/pre-choruses and sung choruses shows up for multiple cuts as well. Pre-release single "Sorrow Light The Way" boasts some of the band's most complex sounds yet, while also providing one of the album's most singable clean rock choruses. "Hang the Fire" has a chorus destined to get stuck in your head while also providing another burst of metal energy. "By A Thread" offers a unique choral melody that shows the band is still able to experiment with their style a bit.
Full disclosure: I myself am not as big into screamed vocals. Demon Hunter is one of the few bands that can get me to listen to a song with growlier vocals. Luckily for me and other fans of the band's more accessible radio rock material, half of the album still caters to us. A good number of these songs were among those chosen to be released as prerelease singles. While this is probably due to these songs being more accessible in general due to their lack of screaming, it also helps that these are among the strongest "softer songs" (term used lightly, as most of these still rock pretty hard) Demon Hunter has ever done.
"I'm Done" was the first song we heard from the album, and it's everything you've come to love from a Demon Hunter mid-tempo song. Driving beat, rousing chorus, and Clark's hauntingly powerful clean vocals. "Light Bends" is another song that is both a headbanger and also inspiringly beautiful in its melodies. "The Pain In Me Is Gone" slows things down a bit, with one of the album's most harmonious moments. "Breaking Through Me" and "Overwhelming Closure" also turn in memorable offerings to the album's back half. The title track closes things out with one of the band's softest songs to date. And yet, its slow-building beauty and relatable themes make it a song of the year contender.
With plenty of memorable hooks and guitar solos, this album is musically a surefire crowd-pleaser.
Spiritual Highlights Demon Hunter is known for their blunt commentary on our sinful natures and themes of spiritual warfare. Much of that returns this time around. "My Place In the Dirt" criticizes spiritual complacency in the Church, while "I'm Done" expresses frustration with Christian hypocrisy and those in the Church who tolerate falsehoods.
The dominant theme of the album comes from lead singer Ryan Clark processing his grief over his mother's death. The album is dedicated to her, and many of the songs reference her passing either directly or indirectly. While songs like "Sorrow Light The Way" lament the pain caused by her grief, "The Pain in Me is Gone" strives to overcome that suffering. "Light Bends" finds Christ's presence in the suffering and loss.
Perhaps most profound of all is the title track. The song finds Clark acknowledging the pain and loss, but also recognizing the love and light left behind by his mother. In a moment that loyal fans are sure to appreciate, Clark references 2012's True Defiance ballad, "I Am A Stone." Only now, the lyric is "I am no longer a stone." The line hits so hard, seeing the transformation from someone ready to take on the forces of hell to someone weary and worn, beaten down by loss and pain. But "when the night is at its darkest/In the quiet of your heart, you will know/there was a light here."
Particularly in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, I think this song (this whole album, really) is a timely reminder for a nation that is hurting. I think so many of us, even someone like me who didn't know much about Charlie before last week, are left shaken in the days since his assassination. Regardless of whether we agreed with him or not on this issue or that, seeing someone murdered for speaking about their beliefs is a dark reminder of the depths humanity is capable of sinking, even in a land that prides itself on liberty and free exchange of ideas. Add in the recent murder of children at Annunciation Church while they were attending Mass. It's certainly been a real-life Summer of Darkness. And yet, through the pain and fear, anger and uncertainty, when united to Christ? It is then that we can see that there was a light here. And there still is.
Let these songs remind us to cherish the loved ones God has blessed our lives with, and honor those who have gone before us by continuing to follow the light.
Best Song The title track may contend for song of the year with its accessible melodies and timely message. But offerings like "Light Bends" and "I'm Done" also deliver some of Demon Hunter's best rock offerings yet.
Bottom Line Metal veterans Demon Hunter have delivered their most balanced album to date, and should be in the conversation for Album of the Year. There Was A Light Here has a little something for everyone: from some of their most brutal metal yet to their most tender ballad. A duel of chaotic energy and anthemic inspiration, this is an album that exemplifies everything Demon Hunter excels at. While the extremes of styles might make a given song unpalatable to a given audience, it's precisely that signature sound that helps cement Demon Hunter as legends.
