Raven Lord
Descent to the Underworld

The lord of those ravens are ready for a descent into the underworld and they do their descent to the roar of heavy metal, ravens croaking loudly and flaming fire. There was a great album called Ravenlord by Mystic Prophecy some year ago, I wonder if there is any relation. This band is a multi national one, a sextet of skilled musicians led by singer Csaba Zvekan who also produced the album which was then mixed by the well renowned Fredrik Nordström. It is a band that has seen many line up changes and the line up today isn’t even the same as it was on this album as the drummer has been replaced now, actually the list of past members is already longer than the present members of the band and they are a sextet that just released their first album. A first album with a cover art and logo that looks quite typical of the heavy metal genre.

The story is the same when it comes to the music as it is typical heavy metal with a strong sense of energy and distinctive choruses. I don’t think there is much in terms of uniqueness when it comes to this band, they follow in the trails of many who has come before them. The singer Zvekan is a bit of a typical heavy metal singer, a bit of raspiness and a lot of high pitched singing, if you know the genre well think of the singer of Cage and you’ll have a reference. The production is also quite typical of the genre as well and no surprise the song structures and so on are the same, it feels much like this album is targeting the fans of the so-called true heavy metal genre, the traditionalists you could say.

This is a good album, powerful, strong with good songs and all of that. Sure you can complain about them not being unique, or not feeling fresh and all of that. They are following rather than leading is the word you can use for this album and this band but no matter which words you desire to use it is still a damn good album and if you like heavy metal you should undoubtably like this album because it is very good. None of the eleven tracks can be said to be poor or weak which always is a good thing, but then again neither are there any tracks standing out in the other direction. It is an overall high quality album that I really like listening to and when doing so I don’t really think about their complete lack of originality and all of that.

When you are as good as these guys on this album you don’t really need to be original, you can get away with being great at what you do. Thing is though that you can get away with it once or maybe twice but then it will be repetitive so I really hope that these guys do evolve in future offerings rather than trying to make the same thing over and over, still now is not the time to think of that just enjoy this brilliant album instead. This is exactly what heavy metallers want, unoriginal with DNA stolen from greats of the past and with no sense of progression in a musical sense, fortunately it is also really good to listen to.

HHHHHHH