Ashes of Reason searches for sparks and shadows on new album ‘Crisis Catalyst’
Under the name Ashes of Reason, UK artist Anthony Ellis returns with ‘Crisis Catalyst’, a record that feels caught between defiance and doubt. His third full-length effort is a restless collection; one moment, it’s conjuring towering, melodic metal passages; the next, it’s plunging into strange vocal contortions and unexpected tonal detours.
Ellis has always been something of a lone wolf: a one-man army crafting all the riffs, rhythms, and howling vocals himself. On ‘Crisis Catalyst’, he doubles down on that independence, weaving together classic metal grandeur with a modern, more introspective edge. The result is uneven but compelling, a record that doesn’t always land cleanly but never stops reaching.
Opening salvo ‘Fight The Machine’ charges out with righteous aggression, borrowing its DNA from old-school giants but filtered through Ellis’s own emotional turbulence. ‘Desensitised Nation’ continues in a similar vein, though here the urgency flickers between conviction and caution, creating a push-pull that is both frustrating and fascinating.
The centrepiece ‘Crisis Catalyst’,stands as the album’s most cohesive moment, delivering sharp hooks and thunderous arrangements that nod toward power metal without losing Ellis’s distinct personality. The track pulses with the tension of someone trying to wrestle meaning from an increasingly chaotic world.
But it wouldn’t be an Ashes of Reason release without its quirks. On ‘Screaming At The Void’, Ellis plays with space and restraint, momentarily swapping steel for vulnerability; and it’s here, in the echoing clean guitars and choral swells, that he truly finds a sense of dramatic weight. The unexpected choice to cover Iron Maiden’s ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ is bold, if not entirely successful; moments of brilliance are marred by timing slips and a certain looseness that suggests a real charm.
Cuts like ‘Cost Too High’ and ‘Ledger of Ghosts’ flirt with cinematic scale, hinting at a more refined melodic sensibility that Ellis sometimes buries beneath the bellowing bravado. Meanwhile, the final bonus track ‘Pineapple Party’ is an unpredictable left turn; a playful, winking closer that proves Ellis isn’t afraid to let in some mischief amid the angst.
There’s a rawness throughout ‘Crisis Catalyst’ that feels both its greatest strength and biggest stumbling block. The album bristles with ideas; some undercooked, some unexpectedly luminous. When Ellis locks in, his voice (both literal and artistic) can be commanding, drawing on metal’s epic lineage while searching for something personal and new. When he misses, it can feel like a missed swing at transcendence, but that very swing is what gives the record its wild-hearted character.
Ultimately, ‘Crisis Catalyst’ reads like a diary scrawled in the early hours: messy and sometimes too honest for its own good. It’s not a slick, radio-ready collection, it’s a bruised and battered mirror held up to a restless mind. Ellis’s refusal to sand down the edges is strangely refreshing. You may not love every note, but you’ll feel the human hands behind them. And that, in a genre often lost in perfection, is worth celebrating.