The
prophecy that will bring balance to metal?
...well, maybe not but it's not still super cool metal!
...well, maybe not but it's not still super cool metal!
These
Brits sure like their metal American and it's certainly a good thing. Their second full length was a late 2015 surprise
for me, I wasn't expecting much as I thought the cover art was a bit
silly (done by Jowita Kamińska, co-head of their
label Metal on Metal) but this freaking rocks. Composed of four
songs ranging from 6 to 11 minutes and 2 short instrumentals acting
as an introduction and a conclusion, this album is a strong piece of
superbly crafted epic metal with thunderous riffs and quality vocals.
I'd
say the biggest influences are Iced Earth's early material mixed with
an healthy dose of Manowar, Testament or also some german speed
steel. It's high octane metal with blistering blastbeats,
technically apt and old school soloing (“To the
Wolves” has a cool one) and a varied and talented lead singer who
intertwines between deep manly vocals and high pitched
Kingdiamondesque ones. Dan Tyrens is a well rounded singer with
a lot of range and he's much better at the violent thrashy
groove vocals than Russell Allen (please stop, dude). There's also
some well placed gang shouts to emphasize certain lines from
these biblical and mythological lyrics.
The
riffing of Ross Oliver (the sole guitarist in the band) ranges from
super heavy and Jon Schaffer only
wish he had his skills. The production is mighty and helps the music
a lot, the two most epic tracks (“Brood of Vipers” and the title
track) keeps a well balanced sound between the atmospheric epic sound
with some subtle symphonic arrangements and heavy riffage throughout
the whole songs. There's no moments wasted and the 4 tracks are all
excellent, no filler, all killer like it should be. The 35 minutes
album isn't too short though, I feel it's an appropriate duration for
an hybrid genre like theirs as some of their influences kept
unleashing overlong albums that were repetitive and in the end, dull.
Risen
Prophecy is a band that doesn't mess around and delivers extremely
well written thrashy power metal with a distinctive feel combining
many classical influences that most metalheads can enjoy. It's
epic, fun, well composed, not much more to ask for this sort of
traditional metal.
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