Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Benedictum
Label: Frontiers Records
Released: 2013
Running time: 51:18
Rating: 3/5
Benedictum are a heavy metal four-piece from San Diego, California. »Obey« is their fourth studio album, a fresh, aggressive manifesto of the primordial heavy metal stance inherited from the legendary American standard-bearers of the first heavy metal generation of the eighties.
What defines Benedictum’s sound first and foremost is the wildly explosive, energetic and many-colored voice of singer Veronica Freeman, authoritatively woven into possessed, tightly wound guitar riffs that roll along on the merciless slapping of the double bass drum pedals. Benedictum don’t do the power metal formula known in Europe. They sound unmistakably American. If you will, that means they’re always closer to the old-school legacy of American speed and thrash metal from the late eighties than to anything that smells of bands like Manowar or Virgin Steele, who, thanks to their sound and style, made it big mainly in Europe.
“Obey” keeps up the bristling sonic metal terror of the previous three albums. In fact, it tries to top them with an aggressive, uncompromisingly bloodthirsty riff stance and a venomously wound-up production, once again handled by Jeff Pilson (Foreigner bassist), after the previous album was produced by Rudy Sarzo (ex-Dio).
In terms of expression, Benedictum don’t bring a musical revolution on the new album either. Everything on »Obey« stays predictable and, in its harmonic building blocks, recognizably related to the band’s previous three studio releases. In other words, it’s all about following the tradition of the old metal school, carefully repackaged in the wrapping of modern trends in sound production, which of course tries to squeeze out of the band’s style and the studio energy itself what heavy metal understands as a sonic extreme.
Veronica Freeman remains the central figure, madly and mercilessly tearing through the reinforced-concrete stance of the guitar riffs with her penetrating vocal approach, right on the edge of bestiality! Her approach once again grabs all the attention in Benedictum’s vocabulary. Her dominant, front-and-center vocal presence also effectively steers attention away from unwelcome feelings of generic-ness, even though it’s clear you’re shackled to metal clichés from the get-go if, in 2013, you decide on a style of heavy metal made by the recipe of the old, ossified school of American metal. And it’s no different if you made that choice back in 2005, like Benedictum, who officially got going then. No difference. Everything was invented long ago.
»Obey« will be an interesting album especially for all those hardened heavy metal veterans, as many of you as are still left alive, who are drawn to the uncompromising aggression of old-school seductive riffs, the kind that have always been born under the scorching California sun, and who will recognize in »Obey« a continuation of the tradition of the old-guard bands led by Crimson Glory, the old Savatage, Warrior, Lizzy Borden, Vicious Rumors, Agent Steel,.. Obey is a hugely compact and well-defined heavy metal album with a polished stance, but one that says absolutely nothing new in its musical direction. The band obviously found their footing on the album »Dominion« (2011), when they brought Jag Panzer drummer Rikard Stjernquist and bassist Aric Avina (Tynator) into the line-up. And that maturing and growth of the band shows in the exceptional compactness of this release. »Obey« knows no ballads and/or mid-tempo tracks. There’s some lifting from the epic creations of Rainbow (the song Die to Love You) and Black Sabbath (the song Retrograde) from the periods when Ronnie James Dio sang in both bands, which is by no means a creative high point for the band, more of a burden.
Line-up
Veronica Freeman – vocals
Pete Wells – guitar
Aric Avina – bass
Rikard Stjernquist – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
TONY MARTIN (ex-Black Sabbath) – vocals on track no. 8
Production
Jeff Pilson
Track list
1. Dream Of The Banshee
2. Fractured
3. Obey
4. Fighting For My Life
5. Scream
6. Evil That We Do
7. Crossing Over
8. Cry
9. Thornz
10. Die To Love You
11. Apex Nation
12. Retrograde
