Label: Metal Blade Records
Release date: June 26, 2020
Production: Falconer/mixing & mastering: Andy LaRoque
Album length: 46:21 min
Genre: Power Metal/Folk Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
Falconer are Swedish power metallers. You can hardly get more power metal than what they do. Six years after “Black Moon Rising” (2014), the band is back on the scene with the ninth album of their career, titled “From A Dying Ember”. Back, and heading off into retirement at the same time! Yep. With this album the band has actually announced its official retirement too.
Falconer are one of the few bands that have kept things relatively stable throughout their career. Three members of the current lineup have been together since the band was founded in 1999: vocalist Mathias Blad, founding member, main songwriter and guitarist Stefan Weinerhall, and drummer Karsten Larsson. The other two members, Jimmy Hedlund and Magnus Lindhart, have also been in the band without a break since 2004. Stability matters, because it’s a guarantee of artistic coherence.
The rule with Falconer is basically this: if someone who doesn’t know the band randomly pulls out one of the nine albums and likes it, they’ll like all the rest too. That means the band doesn’t stray from its chosen style and sound. That said, especially on the last two releases you can tell the production has been freshened up while the style stays classic. Falconer stick doggedly to their power metal recipe, adding folk elements on one side, while on the other the revival of Viking “customs and traditions” is clearly noticeable. There are twelve tracks and you could do without one or two of them, but it’s interesting that in 2020 it’s much easier to digest a freshly released power metal album than it was around fifteen or, say, ten years ago, because the genre has seriously dried up in recent years, with newer releases getting thinner and thinner on the ground. That’s why clichés, those tried, familiar, chewed-over motifs, bother us so much less.
Falconer are a band with their own power metal musical vocabulary. Alongside the detours into pastoral and folk touches, there’s a clear streak of Viking steadfastness running through everything, which is why the album carries such a distinct outline of solemnity and heroism. What tips the scales is the specific, even downright atypical vocal approach of Mathias Blad, who is anything but what you picture when you hear “power metal singer”. His mid-range, even slightly gloomy voice diligently sticks to the proven registers where he’s at his strongest. With Mathias you won’t find any chasing after five octaves. It’s precisely thanks to this special vocal approach that Falconer stand out all the more in power metal.
The guitar work is once again the biggest draw of this release, which doesn’t disappoint for a second, and with it Falconer credibly stand behind everything their name and music represent, even in 2020. The Scandinavian approach is obvious. Good old HammerFall, no less good old Nocturnal Rites, and good old Narnia too. All old and good, with Falconer being the last of the four to catch the ride on the Scandinavian wave of power metal revivalism at the turn of the millennium. This album honestly sounds like it was written twenty years ago, only the production is modernized and achieves an extremely pleasing contrast and density that Falconer could only dream of 20 years back.
Within the proven recipe of the genre mold, the band still manages to squeeze in enough variety of ideas when crafting the lead phrases, which gives the release a pleasing sense of dynamics and atmospheric shifts, guaranteeing that power metal fans will revel in the drama. The solos are venomously ravenous. The Scandinavian approach is full of perfectionism, adorned with committed polish and schooled technique, backed up by neo-classicism. At every step. The choruses grab you one after another, and “From A Dying Ember” builds up a fun dose of grabby pomp and bombast.
It’s not all played at full charge! Two solemn little ballads are thrown in, plus two instrumentals, while The Rapture plows in with blast beats and hellish string-tugging over the riffs, giving the track a black metal undertone. In short: “From A Dying Ember” is a superb new Falconer release that will delight all of the band’s loyal followers, as well as the bulk of fans of the classic approach to heavy metal. The six-year gap between the new album and the last one has simply brought a whole load of fresh ideas, embodied by “From A Dying Ember”.
If this really is the band’s last album, it’s a really damn good one! A heroic, heartfelt finish! Glory to the brave!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Kings and Queens
2. Desert Dreams
3. Redeem and Repent
4. Bland Sump Och Dy
5. Fool’s Crusade
6. Garnets and a Gilded Rose
7. In Regal Attire
8. Rejoice the Adorned
9. Testify
10. Thrust the Dagger Deep
11. Rapture
12. The Cauldron (digital bonus track)
13. Portals of Light (acoustic version – digital bonus track)
14. Long Gone By (acoustic version – digital bonus track)
Lineup:
Mathias Blad – vocals
Stefan Weinerhall – guitar
Jimmy Hedlund – guitar
Magnus Linhardt – bass
Karsten Larsson – drums
