Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Astral Doors
Label: Metalville Records
Release: 2014
Length: 52:32
Rating: 3/5
Sweden’s Astral Doors are one of those lucky or unlucky bands (depending on who you ask) that eerily echo the greats of rock’s past. Even its icons. The story doesn’t change on the seventh studio album either. The vocals still “cruelly” channel Ronnie James Dio, and across 11 new tracks the band rides with no less mercy, writing songs that are blithely inspired by the figure and work of Rainbow, (Dio/Martin era) Black Sabbath and Dio. There have been quite a few replicas in the rock era, but if you were looking for the real Ronnie James Dio replica, it would surely be Nils Patrik Johansson. There’s only one other singer who gets so venomously close to Ronnie. Jorn Lande, of course, except he doesn’t always do it on purpose.
Anyway, the fantasy-tinged message of the lyrics, spiced up with the occult and sorcery, sits right alongside what Ronnie James Dio’s poetry stood for, whether in the days of Ranbow, Black Sabbath or later in his own band Dio. Astral Doors do stick to the stock song formatting that the power metal genre knows only too well, specifically weighed down with bombastically predatory moods and occasionally salted with a symphonic touch (Confessions). Individual tracks are structurally comparable to Sabaton, and the same goes for the production. But it’s the vocals that move Astral Dooers far away from any search for parallels in power metal.
Astral Doors stay so “shameless” that, for instance, in the acoustic intro of Shadowchaser they borrow the main motif of Rainbow’s Man on a Silver Mountain, which then stretches into the main guitar phrase the verse “lies” on. No wonder the vocals in this song bring Ronnie James Dio’s vocal image to life even more intensely. Later on, Walker the Stalker comes close to this one in content and atmosphere. The mid-tempo gloomer Die Alone is a very bold composition, with tasteful shifts in tempo and mood. All well and good, if only the song didn’t lean so sinfully on Black Sabbath.
The band, who by the way played Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna back in October 2006 as support for Blind Guardian, who were presenting their album “A Twist in the Myth” at the time, suffer from a lack of imagination on the other front too. Take a look at the cover and you’ll see a figure reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, while the chosen motif itself evokes the cover of Blind Guardian’s “Forgotten Tales”, or one of Derek Riggs’ creations for the Iron Maiden album “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” (1988).
As mentioned, Astral Doors know how to put together solid songs. One after another they grab you with a dramatic build-up of mood that peaks in the chorus melodies. Guitar riffs, a curtain of keyboards and a cannon-like rhythmic march, with a Dio-style voice front and center. It all comes together as an exceptionally lively, dynamic whole that effectively conjures a sense of mysticism in fantasy territory. All of this would be perfect if Astral Dooers again didn’t lean so heavily on the catalog of Ronnie James Dio’s bands and his vocal delivery. Those who aren’t bothered by the fact that it’s a good replica will reach for this album again, the untamed power metal fans, while everyone else will keep preferring the originals, made mostly in the eighties. However you look at it, it’s best that you check this band out yourself. If you like Dio and you’re drawn to anything that reminds you of him, then Astral Doors are definitely a band that’ll suit you down to the ground.
Lineup
Nils Patrik Johansson– vocals
Joachim Nordlund – guitar
Joakim Roberg – keyboards
Ulf Lagerstroem – bass
Johan Lindstedt – drums
Production
Astral Doors
Tracklist
1. The Last Temptation of Christ
2. Disciples of the Dragon Lord
3. Wailing Wall
4. Shadowchaser
5. Die Alone
6. Hoodoo Ceremony
7. Southern Conjuration
8. Walker the Stalker
9. Desert Nights
10. In The Name of Rock
11. Confessions
