Album/EP

Seven Hours After Violet - Seven Hours After Violet (Album Review)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Oct 16, 2024

7 min read

Seven Hours After Violet - Seven Hours After Violet
Released: October 11, 2024

Line Up

Shavo Odadjian // Bass
Morgoth Beatz // Guitar
Alejandro Aranda // Guitar
Josh Johnson // Drums
Taylor Barber // Vocals

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When the boss asked if I wanted to review the debut album by Seven Hours After Violet, my initial thought was “We’ve really run out of cool band names haven’t we?” Then I remembered our own Adam Rice had just interviewed Shavo Odadjian (System of a Down) about his new band whose name escaped me. I won’t be making that mistake again.

Odadjian has joined with a deathcore fantasy band Morgoth Beatz (Winds of Plague), Alejandro Aranda (aka Scarypoolparty), Josh Johnson (Winds of Plague) and Taylor Barber (Left to Suffer). So getting past the name, this is a band of seriously heavy hitters and that sets the expectations way high.

For fans of Odadjian, Seven Hours After Violet will take some getting used to. But that’s great news for fans of the other guys - because this is primarily a melodic deathcore record, with most of it written by Shavo and Morgoth. At face value, it might appear to be another album in an increasingly bloated but popular genre, but Shavo has enough musical range to give SHAV some points of difference (ah I get the band name now! Nice).

The songs are performed in a deathcore manner but the base is melodic metal. The opening duo of ‘Paradise’ and ‘Alive’ set the tone with a clever adaptation of deathcore expectations using loops and groove-oriented riffs.

For System of a Down fans, there is still a degree of accessibility. Take ‘Sunrise’ as a shining example. It has a massive radio-friendly clean chorus, but then features some of Barber’s deepest gutturals and a sped-up circle pit triggering bridge. It’s fierce and you can sing along to it. Similarly, ‘Go!’ has great gang vocals going “whoa whoa” but then hits a vicious breakdown. This duality is hardly a new thing at all, but SHAV hit a high standard.

Where the album really takes off is the songs when Barber’s clean vocals get to soar. The band has the harmonic and melodic chops to back him up. ‘Float’ has some cool textures and the kind of riff that will light up arenas or evening festival slots. It might be a little too emo for Left to Suffer fans, but it’s powerful nonetheless. There’s also the moody ‘Cry…’ and the triumphant ‘Radiance’, both of which bring in some cool guitar synth. It certainly reveals the band’s ambitions to play more than club shows, and certainly these are the kind of tunes that can take them there.

Seven Hours After Violet packs a lot into their debut album. As a supergroup they don’t just add up parts of their other bands, rather they use the opportunity to learn from each other and stretch what audiences can expect from them.

As a collective, there’s enough great songs here to suggest they’ll be a welcome addition to festivals worldwide.