Label: High Roller Records
Release date: 28.04.2017
Production: Cloven Hoof
Album length: 44.43 min
Genre: Heavy Metal (N.W.O.B.H.M.)
Rating: 9.0 / 10
These days Cloven Hoof are considered heavy metal legends. They emerged during the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” boom, at the turn of the seventies into the eighties, alongside peers like (among others) Iron Maiden, who, unlike Cloven Hoof, struck commercial gold.
Well, Cloven Hoof are defined by two eras. The first wrapped up in 1990, followed by a long stretch of silence, and then the band woke up from a decade of hibernation and has been going nonstop ever since, though with frequent lineup shuffles. The new album, “Who Mourns for the Morning Star?”, is no exception. The only original, founding member of today’s Cloven Hoof is the man who has lived through it all with the band and seen every era of metal: bassist Lee Payne. Thanks to his undiminished drive, the old-school metal outfit keeps on biting, and without a single chipped tooth. For the new album the quintet swapped out no fewer than three members. This year the crew was joined by a somewhat younger but very experienced vocalist, George Call (Aska, Banshee, Warrion, Emerald, Violent Storm); in 2014, after the release of Resist Or Serve, the band took on new guitarist Luke Hatton, while drummer Danny White arrived two years ago. The only member of the current Cloven Hoof lineup with slightly longer tenure, at six years, is guitarist Chriss Coss.
Anyway, the previous album “Resist or Serve” brilliantly kept the band’s link to the eighties, especially when we talk today about bands that came out of the N.W.O.B.H.M. era. So it’s easy to conclude that, as long as everything is in the right place in the heads of the people involved, albums made even in 2017 carry the old-guard character of these bands into the age of new ideas without a hitch. Ideas composed in a traditional manner simply work in a fresh production outfit in a way all their own. Only a band formed in 1979 can pull that off in 2017. And “Who Mourns for the Morning Star?”, despite the recent swap of no fewer than three crew members, keeps this link to the old school and the legacy of the eighties. It’s further proof that Lee Payne has everything the band does under absolute control.
Lucky for us, it’s that way. “Who Mourns for the Morning Star?” couldn’t boast any more authenticity or blood-deep loyalty to the old school of British metal. It keeps alive a tradition through which the influential spirit of rock’n’roll roars as well. The songs are occult, dark, stuffed with dramatic theater, yet at the same time incredibly singable and catchy, mostly thanks to highly musical choruses that fill the album with pomp and bombast. Judging by newer advances in studio sound processing, and by some of the arrangement moves, the band’s current view of the metal world also edges toward the doctrine of the genre that later migrated to Germany and gave birth to power metal.
Everything is in its place. Ornamental flourishes over fiery phrases, harmonies in thirds, the explosive, dominant, incredibly piercing singing of George Call, who is hungry to prove himself. The vocalist has an incredible range in which he effortlessly conquers the heights across a three-octave stretch, all while holding on to staggering vocal power.
“Who Mourns for the Morning Star?” is an album that, in these new times, powerfully and authentically recalls the golden eighties, when metal was a young child of the musical universe. Lee Payne and his crew have delivered an excellent new studio achievement, backed with full credibility by the name of a legendary N.W.O.B.H.M. torchbearer that, to this day, has been unjustly overlooked and a little forgotten on the world music stage. Which is why it works as if it had barely turned twenty, dewy-fresh, brimming with the lifeblood of creative freshness and drive. Just as it should be. No surrender, no retreat. Fans of (retro) nostalgic metal days will be more than thrilled to gobble up the material on the new Cloven Hoof studio release.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Star Rider
2. Song Of Orpheus
3. I Talk To The Dead
4. Neon Angels
5. Morning Star
6. Time To Burn
7. Mindmaster
8. Go Tell the Spartans
9. Bannockburn
Line-up:
George Call – vocals, backing vocals
Chris Coss – guitar
Luke Hatton – guitar
Lee Payne – bass
Danny White – drums
