Third albums are known to be a bit tricky. By this point you’re supposed to have learned, evolved, progressed, honed your sound to near perfection. Heart Of A Coward have apparently heard of this concept, but when it came to writing album three they simply looked at each other, scratched their heads and said “Right, well, the last two were fun, so same again, yeah?”
What you will find on ‘Deliverance’ is much more of what you will have found on ‘Hope & Hindrance’ and ‘Severance’. The severely drop-tuned riffage is back, with little change in guitar tone (or anything else really) from their previous work. But hey, the djenty-metalcore thing has been doing them proud so far, so why change a winning formula?
Stand-out tracks such as ‘Hollow’, ‘Grain of Sand’ and the title track perfectly encompass what Heart Of A Coward are about, and have been about since their inception: heavy as fuck riffs, sprinkled with Jamie Graham’s fantastic, diverse vocal range, all served on the end of a swinging fist of hatred and anger. Listening to ‘Anti-Life’ at high volumes is like being headbutted by someone who has the CD cases of the other two Heart Of A Coward albums selotaped to their forehead.
For all this though, ‘Deliverance’ is still very good. It is Heart Of A Coward doing what only they do so well, and doing it to the best of their ability. Each track is heavy enough to feel like receiving a rectal exam from The Hulk and when Graham brings out his massive clean vocals it is impossible to not be entertained. Although they have fallen into the trap that a lot of bands who sound as heavy as these guys do, in that a lot of the songs on each album sound fairly similar, the high calibre of the songwriting and the skilful execution of the riffs and breakdowns mean that this album, though far from unique within the canon of Heart Of A Coward, is still a stand-out album released this year.
ANDY LEDDINGTON