Dark Order - Cold War Of The Condor

2010 has been quite the year for 'war based' metal albums. Hail Of Bullets released their album based on the WW2 Pacific Front and God Dethroned continued their fantacism with WW 1 with some more tasteful death metal. Now, another has joined the war story ranks, but this time it is more obscure. And it is thrash. Dark Order have been around for some time and kept fans happy with a steady stream of releases every four years. This interval is the perfect timing for the band to relax and continue wrting fresh material without feeling rushed, as many other bands tend to be (God Dethroned was a lucky one in evading this pitfall). 'Cold War Of The Condor' is Dark Order's third studio album and focuses on the obscure history of the Chilean takeover known as Pinochet Regime during 1973. Dark Order retell the story through their music very well and without being overly melodramatic while at the same time delivering an excellently varied thrash opus.

Much of Dark Order's music sounds like a cross between Slayer and Metallica, offering a slew of shredding solos, gruff vocals, and some nice drumming to boot. The opening track is a great lead in instrumental with some spoken word samples before the band launches into "Dissensions Of The Raptor." This is a pretty standard chugging/ solo/ chugging thrash song, but the production is top notch and the solos offer a heavy dose of melody so everything doesn't feel so one sided. The whole sudden 'stop, chug, go' formula is pretty apparent on most of the tracks of the album, but thankfully Dark Order never does the same track twice. "State Of Siege" may feel like it has the same riffs, but the solos are much more graceful and also interlaced in the riffs. There are a few instrumentals in the mix as well. "A Lament For Victor Jara" and "Requiem Eternal" are far from typical thrash due to their softer nature and really round out the album. However, for the most part everything is electrified and heavy, with the guitars and vocals leading the way, although on "Operation Condor" there is some fantastic drum work that is very percussive and goes right along with the whole South American theme of the album.

Combine 'Cold War's' melodies with its decency of track lengths and one has themselves a very solid concept album. As usual, Dark Order try to keep a solid thrash sound but are not afraid to experiment a bit, either when it comes to lyrics or music. The band takes the best sounds of albums like 'Seasons Of The Abyss' from Slayer's days, combines it with the furies of Testament, and sprinkles a bit of melody in it from Metallica to create this excellent super-thrash album that makes a cut above all the rest who think just riffs and solos make a good album.

  1. September 11 1973
  2. Dissension of the Raptor
  3. State Of Siege
  4. A Lament For Victor Jara
  5. Tears Of The Exiled
  6. Caravan Of Death
  7. Villa Grimaldi
  8. Operation Condor
  9. The Disappeared
  10. Operacion Siglo Veinte
  11. Criminal Of State
  12. Blood Fire
  13. Continuum Of Cold War
  14. Requiem Eternal

BattleGod Productions
Reviewer: Colin McNamara
Jan 8, 2011

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