Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: December 4, 2020
Production: Persuader
Album length: 44.04 min
Genre: Power Metal/Thrash Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Persuader are a Swedish heavy metal outfit that formed way back in 1997 in Umeå. »Necromancy« is only their fifth studio album and their first for the Italian label Frontiers Music srl. They may patch their studio albums together slowly, but Persuader have never gone into hibernation. For the last six or seven years the band’s career hung by a thread, yet they still found the strength to climb back into the saddle of their own confessional musical vision. And so »Necromancy« was born, its title drawing inspiration mostly from that last stretch, when the band seemed clinically dead. But they pulled themselves back together. Even the band’s first decade was marked by a period when the members tried their hands at new musical challenges and projects, like playing in Savage Circus with Iron Savior boss Piet Sielck and former Blind Guardian drummer Thomen Stauch, and in the American band Dark Empire. Neither of those two bands is active anymore.
Persuader have always sounded »BlindGuardian-ish«, and those influences are felt again this time around – more than obvious right in the opener »The Curse Unbound«. It’s power metal flirting with elements of Teutonic thrash, so Persuader can be interesting even to fans of the likes of Paradox or early Vendetta, while the song »Raise of Death« at moments even evokes some of the sound of Hamburg’s Rage from the mid-nineties. The band is bound to please fans of the acts regarded as the pillars of European power metal. Besides the aforementioned Blind Guardian, especially Iron Savior, and in places Gamma Ray too.
Once again the band builds sky-high bombast, with peaks in theatrical chorus melodies. Persuader’s strength is that they never can, and never know how to, get syrupy. They’ve got just the right feel for injecting the occult, mystery and, of course, dark doom. At the same time they’re big perfectionists, and the seven songs – as they created them for the new album – are remarkably polished and refined. There’s no doubt about that.
The first big draw is the incredibly well-preserved, piercing, yet distinctly sharp vocals of Jens Carlsson, which stay venomously convincing even in the highest registers and recall Hansi Kürsch at his best in the Blind Guardian days (Tokyo Tapes?). The second is the excellent lead guitar work, with all the guitar harmonies and ornaments included, which Emil Norberg handled across the whole album. He also played all the bass on the record, and just a few days ago the band welcomed a new bassist, Alex Friberg, into the ranks. Norberg also gave an official statement that the band has entered a new chapter and intends to release a series of studio albums in the future.
»Necromancy« is a decisive foundation stone for that new chapter. It’s a high-quality, compact, relentlessly gripping effort. The songs develop contrasting twists of highly vibrant moods, and the album is accompanied by thoroughly convincing drama theater that holds the listener firmly in its grip for the whole of its slightly-under-three-quarters-of-an-hour running time. »Necromancy« is a tightly honed, carefully composed piece of work. You can feel the band picked through their best ideas for it and spent a good while wrestling with the material. The album’s highlights are the opener The Curse Unbound and the closer The Infernal Fires, which is especially theatrical and more ambitiously arranged. This is an album that will definitely not disappoint the band’s fans. An album that’s concentrated and concise in its expression and that, despite the echoes of the band’s role models, keeps the listener busy and entertained.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. The Curse Unbound
2. Scars
3. Raise The Dead
4. Reign Of Darkness
5. Hells Command
6. Gateways
7. The Infernal Fires
Lineup:
Jens Carlsson – vocals
Emil Norberg – guitar
Fredrik Mannberg – guitar
Efraim Juntunen – drums
