Band:	Fierce Deity
Album:	A Terrible Fate
Style:	Hard rock, Power metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	April 2024

01. LEViARACH
02. A Life Of Hate
03. Nekot's Shrine / Storm Temple
04. Deadworld
05. Paralysis (Into The Wind)
06. A Terrible Fate

There’s really something to be appreciated about the singular, unrestrained creative vision that often emerges from a one-man project; with no need for compromise between band members, the songwriting can go into bold places, and while it doesn’t pay off every time, the results can be uniquely satisfying.

Fierce Deity is the solo project of Australia’s Jonathan Barwick, and it’s a project that already received kudos on this site with the nomination of their debut album Power Wisdom Courage in the 2021 Metal Storm Awards. The record’s categorization into that year’s Hard Rock category was one of those decisions that has a rational basis, but by no means tells the full story; yes, there was a hard rock basis to a lot of the songwriting, but it was the kind of heavy rock that lingers on the border with heavy metal, and was rendered in quite progressive form across 3 songs with an average runtime of over 10 minutes, with additional influences incorporated from the seemingly disparate genres of power metal and stoner metal. It was quite a unique concoction of styles, and A Terrible Fate sustains that ambition.

The songwriting has been condensed here slightly; the tracks still last quite a while, but there’s none that breach the 10-minute barrier, and the closing title track is a positively bitesized 4 minutes. Despite this, A Terrible Fate arguably feels more naturally classified as progressive metal compared with its predecessor, which is partly due to a shift towards a more consistently metallic sound, one that’s somewhat in the ballpark of Dream Theater’s recent Distance Over Time album (the song “Untethered Angel” came to mind a few times while listening to this). Still, despite me just referencing the poster children of prog wankery, A Terrible Fate offers a more subtle prog, one with underlying rhythmic complexity to its meaty mid-tempo riffs without ever burdening the listeners with overly elaborate writing or excessive technicality.

What of the other styles mentioned above, though? I will say that stoner metal now comprises but a tiny fragment of the album’s DNA, with only brief moments on the more hard rock-oriented songs, “A Life Of Hate” and “Deadworld”, bearing any passing resemblance. As for power metal, it’s not really in the instrumental side, which rarely approaches a tempo that one might describe as ‘driving’, but more so the fantastical edge to the soundscaping and the rousing nature of the often multilayered clean-sung choruses. For a solo musician who clearly has a strong aptitude across multiple instruments, Barwick has a remarkably great singing voice, which can soar right towards falsetto range in opportune moments, such as on “A Life Of Hate”, and the harmonizing arrangements of the vocals are really well-crafted.

Now, before I start praising the album further, I think it’s fair to acknowledge some of the rough edges in the album’s songwriting that perhaps hold it back from reaching its true potential. Given the variety in styles incorporated here, most songs transition between several sections, and my issue is not with how well these moments fit together (I was actually really impressed by how seamlessly “Deadworld” moves from a swaggering stoner/hard rock groove into a quite dramatic and theatrical chorus), but rather the moments in which songs come to a halt, with momentum-stalling breaks in “A Life Of Hate”, “Deadworld” and the title track. There are also a couple of specific passages that don’t quite do it for me, including the polyrhythmic heavy instrumental sequence after the electronics break in “A Life Of Hate”, and the rather stop-start disjointed flow of the heavy verse that arrives midway into “Nekot’s Shrine/Storm Temple”.

Having said all that, A Terrible Fate offers more than its share of positives to ensure it is a fitting successor to Power Wisdom Courage. “LEViARACH” is a solid early demonstration of Fierce Deity’s chunky, brooding metallic instrumentation in combination with dramatic, passionate power metal-inspired vocals. A couple of songs here have lengthy quiet scene-setting openings, and the gradual build-up during the first half of “Nekot’s Shrine” works really well, particularly when the heavy distortion and lead guitar harmonies kick in; I similarly enjoy the big sound of the song’s chorus, and the unexpected but very well executed shift into a mellow, psychedelic passage right at the track’s end.

Perhaps my favourite song here, however, is the one that has the most ambitious stylistic departure. “Paralysis (Into The Wind)” is the album’s longest cut, yet it has arguably the least presence of metal of any song here. Instead, this is a folk-inspired song, and it’s pulled off very nicely; the flat-four beat below the harp and flute melodies on the keyboards is already very fun, reminding me of Iomair’s album from a couple of years ago, but after threatening to lose momentum by pulling things back for a campfire sing-along sequence, things then get going again really well with beautiful, dainty acoustic guitar and strong vocals that come together to great effect in the song’s semi-heavy conclusion.

I would hesitate to call A Terrible Fate a great album; there’s a few too many niggles in the songwriting, combined with a handful of tracks or segments that don’t do an awful lot for me. Nevertheless, it’s an album that I feel warmly towards, largely for the ambition that Barwick demonstrates with the breadth of styles incorporated into it, but also for the quality of the execution when everything comes together well.