In Review: Light This City Stormchaser

Earlier this year I caught up with Light This City for an interview when they were on tour with All That Remains, Chimaira and Black Tide. At that time they were touring in support of their third album Facing The Thousand which was also their second with second on Prosthetic Records. Facing The Thousand was released in 2006 and Light This City was in the process of writing and recording their next album shortly after this tour.

After the winter tour with fellow label mates All That Remains, Light This City got in to the studio and started recording Stormchaser. They headed out with God Forbid and Death Angel on the In Thrash We Trust tour early in to the summer but about midway through they announced their plans to disband. Sadly for their many fans, Stormchaser would be the band’s swansong, but the founding members Ben Murray and Laura Nichol had their reasons to disband. You’ll find out more in an interview to be posted later this week.

November 11th will mark the fourth and final release of Light This City and if you’re a fan, then chances are that you’ll be very happy with this album.

Stormchaser picks up where Facing The Thousand left off and does so with a vengeance. Each song has a lot of thrash driven melodic guitar work with great hooks and rhythm. Lyrically the songs are well constructed and each song tells a story. Ben Murray and Laura Nichole offered a little bit of insight in to two of the songs that I favor the most. Firehaven feature Testament front-man Chuck Billy and the last track on Stormchaser, Self Portrait.

On Firehaven:

Laura: This is my favorite title from the album. For a while, I considered titling the album, “Firehaven”, but I was outnumbered. I love the concept because it is the complete opposite of “Stormchaser”, which is all about the hunger for adventure and being a touring machine. This song came at a point where I felt a little fed up with the touring lifestyle. I was reading Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, and one of my favorite short stories in that book is one called “The Long Rain”, about a spaceship from Earth that crash-lands on Venus, a planet where it never stops raining. The men go, unprepared, on a journey in search of a “Sun-dome”, a refuge that earthlings built all around the planet to shelter visitors from the rain. But the Venusians hate earthlings and smash all of the Sun-domes. The guys from the rocketship are just wandering aimlessly, being driven insane by the constant drops pounding on their heads, looking for something they might never find.

At times on tour, I felt similarities the protagonists of the story. Here I was, searching for adventure, and I got it tenfold. Of course there are days you love being on the road. But sometimes the adventure gets to be a bit much, like a cloud constantly overhead, and you end up thinking that you need to be more careful what you wish for.

But then you get Chuck Billy to do guest vocals on a song and everything is right again! …That was such a trip. I would look into the vocal room and see this guy that probably fills up most of the booth he’s in, and then I look to my right and see our little Ben giving him all this direction on how he should be singing for the part. Chuck is the coolest dude ever. I just wish we had better beer to offer him when he visited the studio.

Ben: As Laura said, what stands out about this song is Chuck’s appearance vocally, but the music is also incredible in my opinion. I think the practice-room title for this was “Municipal Waste” because it was SO thrashy, we couldn’t help but call it that! The beginning just hits you in the face and doesn’t let up until it’s over. The chorus is a bit darker/melodic death, while the verses are totally mid tempo thrash, which we really explored on this record. When Chuck’s vocals come in at the end it just peaks and ties it all together, from there there is a heavy slam anthrax-style riff, followed by a ripping solo. All of that was really new to us and totally fun to play.

On Self Portait:

Laura: Music has a way of traveling through one’s body like water through cracks in a rock, searching out and filling up that core of someone, touching on emotions one didn’t even know how to bring out of themselves. Working these lyrics into the music flowed just like that. Ben sat down with what I wrote, played the song, and we were able to figure out the vocal patterns in half an hour, without changing a thing.

I always wanted to find a way to thank the bands that have inspired me and pushed me to accomplish things like creating “Stormchaser”. I remember riding around on the bus when I was fifteen years old, listening to Darkest Hour, and feeling like my eyes were being opened to the world of music. Not radio crap or the stuff my guitar teacher showed me. Real music. Music I could make if I just listened and learned. “Self Portrait” might read like a love song, and it sort of is one, but it was inspired by listening to my favorite bands. And I wrote it as an ode to them (and one band in particular) for continuously challenging me, causing me to realize certain aspects of myself that make up who I am today.

Ben: This song came together pretty slowly in the practice studio, and it was one of the last ones we wrote. I feel like this along with “Beginning with Release” has the most impressive guitar work the band has ever done. Ryan’s solo at the end just blows me away. This song always felt like the last track, it was so epic and felt like a finishing track. The chorus reminds me of a Darkest Hour Kris Norris kind of melody, and the harmonies are just so sweet. We didn’t really anticipate how well this song came together but I’m pretty sure it is a band favorite. The whole thing just flows great, and turned out being a really nice surprise towards the end of the writing process for “Stormchaser”.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill metal album thrown together to satisfy a contractual obligation of a band on their way out. A lot of time and effort was obviously put in to this record. Brian Forbes and Ryan Hansen are great guitar players and bring a lot to the table with lead riffs and rhythms that are both memorable and relevant to the style of metal that Light This City established themselves with. Self portrait has a solo near then end that almost oozes with Dave Mustaine influence, or at least it kind of has an Into The Lungs Of Hell feel to it, to me.

The only thing that I can say that can be taking in a negative manner about Stormchaser is that I would have liked to see a bit more variation in Laura Nichol’s vocals. She has a great scream but there is something that I feel could make it sound even better and I can’t quite explain it. If there was a bit more of a fluctuation in her vocal tone at times I think I would enjoy it a little more.

Overall Stormchaser is a great album and a good closing to a band who’s career was just starting to take off. If you liked Remains of The Gods and Facing The Thousand then you will love Stormchaser.

Keep an eye out later this week for a short interview with Ben Murray. He will catch us up on what he’s doing these days and a little more detail in to what led up to the decision to disband Light This City.

Image Source: Amazon.com