Metal Forge - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
There is almost something Master of Puppets about the album on first impression. You have the album cover for starters, which has a similar aesthetic feel to it, and then you have the opening number, ‘Pursuit of Honor’, which is very reminiscent to the opening of ‘Battery’ before that flurry of guitars comes crashing in. The 38 second opener leads into ‘Push Pull Destroy’ which does not come initially across as hard-lined as the likes of ‘Battery’ but it does simmer with infectious rhythm and Gunther’s vocals drill right into your ear drums and seer away at your brain all before the song slows, the bass line picks up and the guitar solos give a little insight of what’s to come.
And it is within those first two tracks that Battlecross take their stand: firmly rooted in good old thrash metal but with a heavy dose of death metal also running through their style of “Blue Collar Thrash Metal”.
Blabbermouth - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
“You realize, you’re wondering what’s the burning that you smell?” was a line from classic cut “Lethal Tendencies” by former Metal Blade artists HALLOWS EVE way back in the decade of the ’80s. What’s that have to do with the price of olives in Turkey? Not much; just that Detroit’s BATTLECROSS is part of a new generation of heavy thrashers on the Metal Blade roster. And that smell stinging your nostrils is coming from the series of raging infernos that is “Pursuit of Honor”.
Screaming guitars, shrieking vocals, guttural punch, and melodic sensibility all wrapped up in big ole’ bucket of Motor City metal ruckus is much of what’s happening on the group’s debut album. The basis is traditional thrash metal, but not in a retro wannabe sense, and is delivered in a package that is modern, yet avoids being too cookie-cutter; melodic, yet not “pretty” or cleanly sung. Often crossing into death metal heaviness and showing some compositional skill, “Pursuit of Honor” is above all else inanely energized.
Metal Kaoz - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
Before I begin with this review, let me first of all say that sometimes those surprises - that is when you expected something and something else pops up - are what I like most in our music. This happened with BATTLECROSS and their second full-length album, “Pursuit Of Honor”. The promo sheet from their record label was characterizing them as Heavy Metal. On other web places around the net people were saying about Thrash / Death Metal, the old school way. And the story goes on and on… So I was like, “Wow, let’s do this!” and I hit the ‘play’ button. And here is where it begun.
What I got was NOTHING (and I mean almost nothing!) to what you may imagine from what was said above. Even though the name of the band, the logo and the title of their album was all about the things mentioned above, their music was different. And it was damn freakin’ good actually! Despite the fact that I hate labels and genres, mostly because sometimes they create borders for a metalhead in order to listen to a band, I would characterize BATTLECROSS as melodic Death / Thrash Metal band.
Apoch’s - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
Battlecross is a relatively new band that molds both Power Metal and Thrash Metal together, and given the response to their independent debut album Push Pull Destroy, they clearly did a fantastic job of it. The Warren, Michigan group formed back in 2003, and until that album in 2010, the group had yet to release anything outside a demo recording in 2005. With all that time to grow as a group, and given the fact that their debut full-length received a lot of positive press, having a follow-up recording roughly one year make sense, but at the same time it leads one to wonder what the quality of the material will be like, especially if you assume the band continued to write new material for seven years, and how much of this album were the songs they chose not to include on Push Pull Destroy. Either way, Pursuit of Honor makes for the group’s second full-length, and first on an actual label, having signed to Metal Blade Records.
Right off the bat, the production quality of the recording is about what you would expect for a metal band at this point. The quality comes off a little clear and digital, but it has a muddier, chunky sound to it that works well with the band’s aggression, but at the same time doesn’t really offer much to the final product. The album has a heavy bass presence against heavy sounding guitars that have an edge to them, but feel a little blunt due to the muddier quality. This doesn’t hurt the album, though it doesn’t help it much either. The drums sound great, are all leveled properly, and the kit takes advantage of the stereo sound of the recording with the cymbols, having distinct parts of the kit go through the left speaker, and other parts on the right, though the snares and bass kicks, which have a nice medium between a strong click and loud thud, are picked up through both. Vocally, the album meshes things together with a tactic that comes off a little more along the lines of screaming with a little rhasp, to a cleaner shouting approach.
Power of Metal - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
You can’t judge a book only by its cover; the same can be said about this CD. A cliché name, cliché artwork and…… cliché music? No, not this time. This band from Detroit combines several styles; thrash traditional metal, death metal and black metal. You can compare them a little bit with the style 3 Inches of Blood used to play on their first albums.
Interesting is the combination of harsh aggressive vocals and death metal grunting. Another positive point is that the band plays very very tight, fast and raw. Thrash music with melody and groove as we know it from Exodus and Testament with death-metal vocals and melodic guitar leads, embedded in a dark atmosphere. Fans of Trivium’s first record will like this too I think. I don’t know how the band manages it, but they have found a perfect combination of some metal styles without becoming cliche or boring. The songs are all nice and well written, have for the bigger part a high tempo and the perfect groove.
It isn’t easy to be original and you don’t have to be, just use the best parts from several styles and melt it together. Battlecross found the way to do it and made one of the better albums I’ve listened to lately.
Congratulations! Mission accomplished!
No Cleaning Singing - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
Pursuit of Honor is nine lean, mean, tech-thrash attacks with two instrumental bookends—a total of just over a half hour. Each track blows up before it gets stale, and then the album thrusts you headlong into another track. Battlecross understand that metal is about movement, and that the only time to slow down is to either let the listener recover, or to drop into further heaviness. The breakdowns never stop a song dead or turn a rager into a stupid sing-along. Likewise, each solo impresses (especially the Thin Lizzy meets Van Halen finger tap break near the end of “Misery”), but only for a moment—everything is too tight for wankery to detract from riff after punishing riff.
The most distinct feature of Battlecross’ music is that each song is in some way or another energizing. Pursuit of Honor pumps you up for thirty minutes and leaves you feeling like a welsh berserker. It’s easy for metal to be depressing—too easy. Making something this uplifting without things getting silly is a delicate balancing act (hello, Rhapsody of Fire), but Battlecross pull it off—this album is for the most depressed state in the union, and it shows. Heandbanging is not just mandatory—it’s compulsive. The best example of the Battlecross pick-up is “Kaleb,” the most rampaging ode to positive parenting I can think of.
Metal Assault - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
October 7, 2023
Detroit-based technical thrash metal quintet Battlecross recently signed on to the Metal Blade label, and are now ready to present their Metal Blade debut ‘Pursuit Of Honor’, consisting of 11 tracks bristling with fist-pumping, face-melting heavy metal at its finest.
The title track acts as the ‘calm before the storm’ type intro that leads into the real opening track “Push Pull Destroy”. Right away, I can identify the uniqueness in Battlecross’ music, as they combine death metal-style vocals with music that can be rather accurately described as traditional heavy metal, at least in this instance. This highly upbeat track is laden with twin guitar harmonies that would raise many a fist in the air and make the heads of listeners bang almost automatically. As if this wasn’t already enough, Don Slater’s bass licks would make you reminisce Steve Harris laying down the bass in those classic early Maiden tunes. With a start as epic as this, the onus was on the following track “Kaleb” to attempt to keep up, and it certainly does. This one though is more of an outright thrash tune as double-bass drumming and fast alternate picking take prominence here. “Deception” enhances the technical aspect even further and definitely sounds like a death metal staple that should please fans of that particular sub-genre.
RingMaster - Pursuit of Honor CD Review
September 11, 2023
Distinct uniqueness and originality is a few and far between occurrence in music today, the possibility of finding something that is so new that jaws drop and heartbeats stop is becoming as rare as honesty in politicians. So the next best thing is a band that uses elements from elsewhere to flavour and expand their own sound to create something that does nothing less than warm the soul and devour the senses. Detroit thrash metalers Battlecross are such a band and with their debut for Metal Blade Records they have delivered just an album.
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Xplosive Metal - Pursuit Of Honor CD Review
September 11, 2023
REVIEWED BY: Caroline Restiaux
What I love most about metal is that it is quite diverse. You have so many bands out there that are made up of distinct characteristics, elements, and qualities. Where some bands lack in musicianship they gain in vocal ability, some have stronger guitar solos and others kick ass when it comes to drumming. When you find bands that encompass all of these strengths it’s hard not to turn the volume up and crank it to 10. This is the case with Detroit’s very own Battlecross.
I admit to sleeping under a rock when it comes to these guys because I had never heard of them before and this is their 2nd full-length release however it’s their debut with Metal Blade. The band has only been around for 4 years now and they already have a mature sound about them and they bring out brutal technicality in their music. The best way for me to describe their sound is to say that it’s extreme death/thrash/tech metal. The release is full of juice and by that I mean it’s dynamic and filled with tons of energy.
