Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: July 16, 2021
Production: Big City
Album length: 52.06 min
Rating: 9.0/10
Genre: Melodic Metal
Big City are a Norwegian melodic metal outfit drawing inspiration from the ultra-musical side of eighties hard rock, and they didn’t just form yesterday. The band was founded seven years ago by guitarist Daniel Olaisen, who had previously played in Scariot. Soon after, his Scariot buddy and fellow guitarist Frank Ørland joined, along with drummer Frank Nordeng Røe. The core for some serious work was in place. So in 2014 the crew put out their debut studio album “Wintersleep”, followed four years later by “Big City Life”. By then Big City were a full lineup and had started getting more active on the live front, too. Three years on, here comes the third album, “Testify X”. The band’s demo recordings blew away the A&R people at the Italian label Frontiers Music Srl. so much that it signed them without much hesitation, even though it would obviously have been hard for them to hear about the band otherwise.
Daniel Olaisen remains the band’s main visionary and chief songwriter, and once again he’s behind most of the new material. It’s material on what is easily their most mature and polished album to date. The compositions sound lush and ultra-bombastic, built on gigantic guitar phrases that are prominent enough in the production and arrangements to let us call Big City a metal band. Even so, this is strongly musical stuff, and fans of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Journey will notice the band sooner than metal purists will. That said, Big City also “burn”, as cranked-up tracks like Dark Rider or Conception prove, not to mention the wrecking ball that is Heart’s Like A Lion. The guitar solos from both guitarists are pure poetry from the classic Scandinavian school, combining ultra-precise control, building speed and holding on to the melody. The catchy choruses are the emotional high points of every track on the album. The guitars don’t skimp on triple-harmony teamwork either. The vocals are slightly dark, but distinctive, authoritative and dominant.
Scandinavian perfectionism is back again, indispensable as ever, and its dedication wins us over once more. It’s not all as black and white as it seems. The band has an internalized feel for building dramatic atmosphere, which can also swing wildly within a track. You can hear it in the theatrical intro of the album’s most cranked-up song, Heart’s Like A Lion, which gives no hint that such a calm, almost cerebral opening could unleash a venomously sharpened metal wrecker. Another example is Dark Rider, where the band lets the bass guitar open things in a rattling manner, then ramps up the decibels round after round until it settles into a distinctive guitar riff. The band signals that Big City are the harder-edged story with the mocking, unbridled opening catalyst The Rush.
Big City are a band worth checking out. The new album “Testiry X” in particular has propelled Big City among the acts in the melodic metal genre, or let’s say skilled tightrope-walking between eighties hard rock elements and fiery metal catchiness, and they’re worth keeping an eye on in the future. If you’re a fan of the Allen/Lande project, Magnus Karlsson’s solo albums, or even the German band Fair Warning, then “Testify X” is an album I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. The Rush
2. Dark Rider
3. Testify
4. I Will Fall
5. Running Away
6. Conception
7. Winds Of The Road
8. Heart’s Like A Lion
9. Graveyard Love
10. How Dark Does It Get
Lineup:
Jørgen Bergersen- vocals
Daniel Olaisen – electric, acoustic guitars
Frank Ørland – electric, acoustic guitars
Miguel Pereira – bass guitar
Frank Nordeng Røe – drums, percussion
