Review: Five Hundredth Year – “A Rose from Ashes”
There is something about the term ‘modern metal’ that can bring with it some cold, nervous shivers up a 
person’s spine. In my experience, I’ve found that there is no middle ground for albums to emerge from this genre: they’re either a force, or they force us to beg for more creativity from the band. Unfortunately for Five Hundredth Year, the A Rose from Ashes EP falls into the second category.
The problem we have here has zero to do with musicianship or authenticity – Five Hundredth Year sounds very much into its own music. However, what the band fails to do is separate itself from every other modern metal act to ever exist.
There’s the masculine mall vocals that drone on about battling through life; the growls that are designed to provide an element of heaviness; Evanescence-light harmonies; and enough instrumental crunch to appease the tank top, tribal band tattoo contingent.
Yes, there is an audience out there for this. Many, many bands have made a living off of creating middle of the road metal. But, that doesn’t mean they should. There comes a time when heavy music players need to realize that it’s better to chase a dream comprised of original ideas, as opposed to creating a nightmare everyone in the scene has already heard.
-Adam Grant
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