Blood of legends --- Battleroar --- 2014 (Cruz del Sur)
With a name like Battleroar you're not really left in too much doubt as to what to expect, and if you still aren't sure, look at the cover. Expect powerfully driven songs about heroes, battles, gods and wizards and scantily-clad maidens. Yeah, this is power metal! But with a slight twist, as these guys hail from the gentle shores of Greece, famous for myth and legend certainly, but hardly a hotbed of power metal, or any metal. This is their fourth album, the guys having been together since 2001, with their first album released in 2003. It's the first I've ever heard from them, so let's jump right in.
We get an instrumental to start us off, perhaps predictably, with a rather grandiose yet intriguing title. “Stormgiven” opens on, well, a storm: thunder booms and rain falls, then a nice acoustic guitar is accompanied by choral vocals and something which will become a feature of Battleroar's music it would seem, and very welcome too, violin. Nothing quite so mournful or stately as a violin. The acoustic then changes to faster Spanish guitar and the violin picks up too, a sort of a gypsy rhythm coming into the music, and you can see this being played at a campfire as sparks jump into the night air and lithe women with dark hair and much cheap jewellery clinking at their necks dance and writhe before the flames. Very evocative.
Quite long for an instrumental, almost four minutes, and it takes us into “The swords are drawn”, as searing electric guitar punches its way in and we're off on a typical power metal trip, chugalong bass and rolling percussion providing the backdrop to vocalist Gerrit Mutz, who has a strong and powerful voice, joined by backing vocals from the others in the band. Effective instrumental passage in about the third minute adding in some fine solos from the two guitarists, Antreas Sotiropoulos and Kostas “HK” Tzortzis (whom we'll just refer to from now on as Antreas and HK. OK?) A cold wind blows in, ushering in “Poisoned well” on the crying violin of Alex Papadiamantis before the two axemen take the song, a slower, more crunching song than the opener.
Here Gerrit gets to show what he can really do behind the mike, backed almost only by sparse guitar and effortlessly rising to the occasion. Alex's violin, though a little subsumed in the mix, is still there, lamenting and calling, and overall it's a really good juxtapositioning after the speedy first track (leaving the instrumental to one side of course). Battleroar don't use keyboards, but there's a certain keyboard sound to the midsection here, with again nice backing vocals as Gerrit moans
”My heart's a poisoned well/ Enchanted by dark spells” --- not the most original of lyrics I'll grant you, but what do you expect with power metal? A good powerful ending then leads us, via Alex's violin into the title track.
The tale of a minstrel recording the deeds of fallen heroes, “Blood of legends” is something of an anthem, the double guitar working very well here as the song rocks along with a good hook and some machinegun drumming from Nick Papadopoulous. I'm beginning to wonder if there are keys on this album, even if not credited, as the opening to “Immortal chariot” definitely sounds like some sort of synth or organ. Chronicling the exploits of the ancient Greek hero Achilles, it's a fast, pounding number driven on the twin guitars of Antreas and HK, with Gerrit attempting a death vocal but not quite pulling it off, and sensibly very quickly returning to his own normal singing voice. Could have been embarrassing, that!
With an opening rather a little too close to Maiden's “Powerslave” for my tastes, “The curse of Medea” is the song of a woman who kills her children and is cursed by the gods. It's another tale from ancient Greece, so go look it up if you want to know more: I'm not your Wiki!
It's a slow, grinding tempo in sympathy with the pain of the narrator, and Alex's violin plays a prominent part in the song; I think this would qualify as “epic power metal”, if such a subgenre exists. If not, I claim its creation. It picks up speed and intensity in the last minute, resulting in a very satisfying and rip-roaring ending. The longest track then on the album is “Valkyries above”, and I think there are few among us who don't know what a Valkyrie was, yes? Running for almost nine minutes, it begins on a gentle picked guitar allied to a soft acoustic with soft, sussurating percussion before the song punches up, giving us the dying thoughts of a warrior on the battlefield who watches the sky for Odin's handmaidens to take him to Valhalla, but is deemed unworthy and left behind, a doomed lost soul, condemned to wander the Earth for eternity.
Great backing vocals here again, and I'm sure I hear female voices in there, though again they're not credited, at least not on the website I'm reading. More great work from Alex on the violin, backed by the two guys on the frets, and a thumping, funereal beat from Nick as Gerrit complains
”All meaningless/ Just utter lies/ They led us to our doom” perhaps realising there are no Valkyries, no Valhalla, no gods, nothing but death and darkness awaiting he and his comrades. I really like the angle on this song. It's seldom you hear ancient man questioning his beliefs, wondering if all his sacrifices were in vain, if he has fought and died for nothing, and it's a sobering rending of the fairytale as he realises there are
”No hymns of praise/ No words of grief.../ No help in sight.”
Another great rocker is “Chivalry (Noble armour)” with a very Manowar “protect the weak” ideal. Oh dear! Gerrit's going all death metal again. Really doesn't suit you, son. Give it up: you've a great enough voice as it is without forcing unclean vocals and grunts out of it. We walk in strange lands then, alone and far from home with the “Exile eternal” who laments his fate, and again it's Alex on the mournful violin who carries much of this bleak tale of a man cast out from his own kingdom, nevermore to see his family or loved ones again. There's a strong determination in the guitars though that speaks of a defiance, a refusal to give in and an abiding desire to remember the faces of those who matter most to him. Some dark vocals and cool chanting near the end part, then a big chorus and chant to take it to its triumphant finish.
And that's it. We end as we began, with an instrumental, this time titled “Relentless waves”, and somehow I doubt the guys are talking about a day at the beach! Although it does start off with the sound of surf ebbing and flowing, then a nice laidback guitar with Alex's gorgeous violin passage fitting right in. It's a slow, langorous melody, sort of in keeping with the movements of the tides. I must admit, I thought the title was going to refer to wave after wave of an army, but from what I'm hearing my “joke” was more on the money, as this seems to be an ode to the power of the sea. Unless there's one in there, Alex makes his violin sound like a sax at times, and there are some effects there that surely must be made on a synth? Kind of like the calm after the storm, the quiet after the battle, it's very relaxing, quite unexpected and a really cool way to end an album that has really impressed me.
TRACKLISTING
1. Stormgiven
2. The swords are drawn
3. Poisoned well
4. Blood of legends
5. Immortal chariot
6. The curse of Medea
7. Valkyries above
8. Chivalry (Noble armour)
9. Exile eternal
10. Relentless waves
When I first began reviewing this, as you may have guessed, the title, the band name and some of the lyrics glanced at led me to believe that Battleroar were just another sword-and-sorcery, we-are-warriors, riffing power metal band, but you know, they are actually so much more. I see that now. At least on this album. They've taken time and put a lot of thought and imagination into their lyrics and have chosen to steer away from some of the stock fare pursued by bands of this ilk. There are few if any songs about battles and glory, instead they tend to focus on the human aspect of war --- loss of life, faith in gods, defeat, the afterlife and so on --- and they certainly know their mythology. Their vocalist is a real find, and the use of violin lends this band a gravitas they might not otherwise possess, and serves in my mind at least to set them apart from the herd.
Very much more than the sum of their parts, this band from Greece merits further checking into, as they have three albums prior to this. I'm not saying they're going to put their homeland on the metal map, or take the world by storm, but Battleroar, despite the somewhat cliched and silly name, deserve more than just to be brushed aside with a whole lot of other copycat bands. These guys really have something, and I look forward to hearing more from them.