Archive for napalm records

Dragony – Viribus Unitis

Posted in CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags , , , on January 14, 2021 by Sara Hammerzmith

Roughly in November 2019 I clicked a link from the Austrian symphonic power metal band Dragony and contributed to the recording of the upcoming album. A lot of things happened since then – In July 2020 they signed with Napalm Records – well deserved! Throughout the campaign they announced a few special guests, such as Alessia Scoletti from Temperance, Georg Neuhauser from Serenity and Michele Guaitoli from Visions of Atlantis.

In November 2020 they finally announced the concept of the album now given the name “Viribus Unitis” – telling the tale of the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, but apparently throwing in a few extra bits here and there with alternate time lines as well as tributes to video games. All in all, the album serves as a concept album something Dragony hasn’t quite dealt with since their debut album “Legends”, making this album coming back to the roots while still keeping the now ever so established Dragony sound. (To read full synopsis of the album, I’ll direct you here) A couple of songs has been written together with Tommy Johansson and Tomas Svedin (“Gods of War”) as well as Michele Guaitoli (“Love You To Death”)

The album starts off with an excerpt from a classical piece known as “The Blue Danube” (on this album referred to ‘On The Blue Danube’) only to explode in a rather aggressive opening song in ”Gods of War”, which serves as an excellent opener and bringing the thoughts immediately back to the first album of theirs, ”Legends” which much like this one is a conceptual rock opera kind of album.

Instantly, it’s followed by yet another epic intro which launches into “Love You to Death”, which directly became my own personal favorite and stayed so throughout the album. The epic intro, the adventorus verses , the massive choruses which makes this song into a pure battlehymn, despite the relatively dark lyrical theme before just casually ending with epicness. Even so, the next song in line falls under what I consider very typical Dragony trademarks musically.

This album is however a bit of a moodswinger as we move from happier cheerful anthems to a tune of a bit more darker nature, “Darkness Within”. While the song itself is actually really good, one of my tops of the album – I can’t help but to think of HammerFall upon hearing the arrangement of the song, more specifically “At The End of the Rainbow” from “Legacy of Kings”, taking some interesting turns in solos and bridges, especially the solos going all over the place, quite literally.

And from the dark place back into the typical Dragony sound of symphonic power metal in the “A.E.I.O.U”, which features Georg Neuhauser from Serenity on vocals, creating quite a harmony together with Siegfried. The song itself is one another of these battle hymns that we’ve come to be quite familiar on this album. Quite easily one of the better tracks on the album.

The title track, “Viribus Unitis” itself probably holds one of the biggest epic elements of the album, as far as beginning of the song and verses goes, and perhaps even more so in the chorus. I also adore the Alice in Wonderland references in the lyrics. It’s the perfect title track, if you ask me.

Another interesting song comes along as we start off with bag pipes – because why not at this point? We just had a song about turning a castle into a flying one. And then, as if it wasn’t odd enough, we are now throwing in a typical 80’s heartthrob in “Made of Metal (Cyberpunk Joseph)”. I’ll admit that these songs falls a bit flat for me in comparison to the other songs.

After these little… interesting sidetracks, we find ourselves back in the battle hymns as “Battle Royale” takes place with pretty much the big culmination of the album. It is a fine mix of everything that has already gone down on this album, an album that got more and more spaced out as the album went on – this is not a bad thing though. It’s made me smile quite a lot throughout the listen. Lastly, we are finding ourselves with “Legends Never Die” which gives us a bit of everything – quite a bit of techno blended with some well-crafted metal inbetween.

Something that has been very clear on this album and something I personally appreciate a lot and keep the album interesting is in all the details. There hasn’t been a single song that, despite being more or less a personal favorite of mine, hasn’t had at least some kind of effect that has made me go hah? What? Be it lyrical absurdum – Rooted in the history of what went down in the Habsburg monarchy, but with the imagination of Siegfried to take it a few steps further makes for another interesting and to say the least, entertaining and hilarious side of the album – to surprise additions such as bagpipes, techno fillers and straight down 80’s sounds in the midst of epic symphonic melodies.

All I can say is YES. I’ve waited a relatively long time for this album, and every single second spent waiting was well worth it. This is easily the best work to date from Dragony and I urge EVERYONE to pick this one up. I don’t often recommend people to buy a specific album, but with this one.. I will. It’s worth every cent. Link is under the cover.

// Sara

Napalm Records

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Civil War – The Last Full Measure

Posted in CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags , , on November 29, 2016 by Sara Hammerzmith

Swedish metalband Civil War is FINALLY back with their third album – “The Last Full Measure” following up the success of “Gods and Generals”. I have personally waited for this day to come, as I couldn’t exactly get enough of “Gods and Generals”, so this album could not have come sooner. And with the teaser in “Road to Victory”, the anticipation grew even bigger.

And I was not disappointed, or at least not exactly. While there were maybe one or two tracks, three if you include the bonus track, that felt a bit like transport, the rest of the album was well pleasing! The album has an epic opening with keyboards before launching into heaviness – bringing your thoughts back a bit to “USS Monitor”, at least to begin with. But seriously, I can’t get over the pre-chorus – I have a tendency to get stuck on small things that I like in songs, and for “Road of Victory” it’s the pre-chorus. Cannot love it enough.

Most of the songs are in the same vein as in “Gods and Generals”, and also “The Killer Angels” – it’s the big, epic songs with amazing vocals that we are used to. Some are heavier – some are a bit calmer, and the whole album is very enjoyable and most importantly – most of the songs are very headbang friendly, which is something that has become more and more important for me over the years as someone who loves going to live shows.

Then we have the two couple of songs that had me startled a bit – starting with “Savannah”. It’s a very good song – trust me, I enjoyed it a lot, but that vocal work Nils Patrik has going on in the beginning had me startled. I can’t exactly fingerpoint what it is – but it brings me back to those cocky 90’s kind of teenage singers when I hear, and I absolutely love it.

The second one is, as most of you might be able to guess – “Tombstone”. I literally sat wide-eyed when this song began. Sure it’s not superoriginal-never-ever-been-done-before, but seriously hearing Civil War go that distance, put a BIG smile on my face. I found myself bouncing around with a wide, very wide smile on my face and if that isn’t an accomplishment, then I don’t know what is. I love it.

thelastfullmeasure

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// Sara

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HammerFall – Built To Last

Posted in CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags , , on November 23, 2016 by Sara Hammerzmith

After all these years, HammerFall’s still going strong. “Built To Last” marks no less than the tenth studioalbum from the Swedish Heavy Metal crusaders from Gothenburg. As the, now, longtime HammerFall fan that I am, I was as usual looking forward to see what they could come up with this time. Ever since “No Sacrifice, No Victory” I have somewhat felt it going a bit downwards – “Infected” being a basic disaster, and “(r)Evolution” starting to pick up the pieces of a shattered era. So, will “Built To Last”, well, last?

To be honest… The album is a bit so-so. It’s still not really reaching the heights that I would want it to do. It starts off with a pretty bland song, for being HammerFall. After having albums open with songs as “Any Means Necessary” and even the more recent “Hector’s Hymn”, “Bring It!” feels very bland. It’s not exactly the punch in the face, or even the premonitions about an epic adventure that you’ve gotten used to over the years.

Right after the bland opener, it picks up the pace – and it’s essentially like all the interesting and good songs managed to find themselves chunked together in the beginning here – powerful anthem “Hammer High”, the “here I am, here I stand” in “The Sacred Wov”, the heavy, fast and anthem like “Dehtrone and Defy” as well as the beautiful, interesting and fairytale like “Twilight Princess”.

After this chunk though, the album loses its magic again and goes back to being a bit of a transport, and a bit bland. The songs melt together, no one really stands out and I find myself sitting there like “Ok.”, probably because I know they can do, and have done, better than this. But I guess it’s a good thing, on the one side, as it leads up to a very mysterious and interesting last song – that opens up with a keyboard solo, and evolves into a melancholic, yet at times aggressive dystopia kind of song. Very interesting and good end to an album that was otherwise a bit bland.

So, how do I conclude all of these shattered thoughts – while there’s a block of good songs in the beginning stretching to the middle, it’s still overall a bit bland, BUT, IT IS a step forward from “(r)Evolution”, so at least it’s going in the right direction after the painful “Infected”. So, well done in that perspective, and, still a little bit to go to get back to the REALLY good days.

hammerfall-built-to-last

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// Sara

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Delain – Moonbathers

Posted in CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags , , on August 30, 2016 by Sara Hammerzmith

Delain, the Dutch metalband most famous for “We are the Others” are finally back with their fifth studioalbum “Moonbathers”, following up the success of “The Human Contradiction” and EP “Lunar Prelude”. For me personally, since I heard “The Glory and the Scum” I’ve been waiting like crazy for this album, and it’s finally here!

Listening to “Moonbathers” is like watching a movie – it’s start off with it’s opening track “Hands of Gold” which is a foreboding song about the adventure yet to come, introducing our hero and perhaps also our villain – in this case portrayed by Alissa White-Gluz. Our first encounter with the hero and the conflict is shown in the second track – “The Glory and the Scum”, giving us an idea what is about to come, and the conflict just culminates in “Suckerpunch” before it’s slowed down and dawned upon us in “The Hurricane” and “Chrysalis: My Last Breath” where our hero gets betrayed.

The climax of the movie, the battle of the movie, starts off with “Fire with Fire” where our hero sees red in her eyes and gets prepared for the ultimate showdown which takes place in “Pendulum”. But then it happens. “Danse Macabre”. Our hero lost. Heroes don’t always win, and heroes don’t always wear capes. A shot at redemption is given with “Scandal”, despite being a Queen cover fits the narrative perfectly, before our hero and the villain break down in “Turn the Lights Out” and finally reach the settlement, and let the credits roll with “The Monarch”.

Not only are the songs placed the way they are to give you this kind of narrative, but the musical arrangements of this albums help enhancing the image of yourself watching a movie, where you let your imagination paint the graphics.

With all of that being said, it’s a very very good album. What gets me the most is all the arrangements. Every single song, every single arrangement behind it just leaves you speechless, sitting there not sure what to feel – you follow the feeling of the music and takes you both up and down, without even paying attention to the lyrics at first. And once you do, you get drawn into a dark world, but not without the little light in the dark – which was also the inspiration for the title, “Moonbathers”, for those of us who find comfort in the dark rather than the light.

I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is – but this album simply speaks to me. Perhaps it’s on a more personal level rather than anything, but I can only salute Delain for bringing us this musical masterpiece of an album for us all to enjoy, laugh and to cry to. Thank you Charlotte, for understanding all of us moonbathers.

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// Sara

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