Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Dracula
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2015
Runtime: 45:39
Rating: 4.5/5
The Dracula project brings two Norwegian musicians together under one roof. The first is actually its original visionary, chief arranger and composer, and also the excellent guitarist of Wig Wam, »Teeny«! His real name is Trond Holter. The second musician is none other than the exceptional vocalist Jorn Lande. While Russell Allen (Allen /Lande, Symphony X, Adreanline Mob) is busy with the Level 10 project, Lande has jumped into a musically very different one. A far more demanding one.
This is a concept album built around the (always popular) story of the ruler Vlad II. Just how many mysteries lurk behind that figure? So, welcome to the 15th century and the realm of vampires and the Devil himself. Holter needed a vocalist like Lande. It couldn’t be any other way with that well-known Scandinavian perfectionism. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more fitting voice in the entire galaxy for such a richly layered, dynamic musical vision as the one tied to the Dracula story. With the flexibility and chameleon-like vocal range that have let Lande step convincingly into every musical genre for years, Lande is the perfect incarnation of Count Dracula. And since a tale of doomed love has to be part of any bloody affair, to reach peak drama theater, Lande is joined now and then by Norwegian singer Lena Fløitmoen, with her tender, maidenly pure voice. She plays the unfortunate Mina, who sells her soul to the devil in exchange for eternal life. Her duets with Lande give you goosebumps from start to finish.
The album »Swing of Death« is a fantastic hard rock and heavy metal opera! Here Holter shows off all the compositional and musical genius that can only be fully realized outside the genre confines of Wig Wam. Across three quarters of an hour of playing time, »Swing of Death« delivers exceptional musical depth. Sure, the basic platform is the ultra-catchy melodic premise of hard rock and heavy metal, which Holter’s riffs in Wig Wam also embody (Walking on Water, Queen of the Dead), but »Swing of Death« is a story packed to the gills with neo-classical forms and baroque extravagance (the instrumental True Love Through Blood, the intros and outros of the songs, as well as their instrumental middle sections), while the title track and Save Me, for instance, bring in a theatrical genre insert of cabaret swing (the kind of thing Queen’s musical calling card carried off admirably), and the theater of the album itself is at times comparable even to Alice Cooper’s horror pomp, and Meat Loaf’s too). Opening track Hands of Your God draws, in an exceptionally gloomy unfolding of theater, on the dark atmosphere of the concept debut of the Beyond Twilight project, »The Devil’s Hall of Fame« (2001), on which Lande also contributed vocals. Masqueade Ball brings a remarkable weave of classicism and gypsy arabesques, deftly caught in a vampirized whirlpool of lead guitar phrases!
Hard rock or heavy metal opera. Whichever you like. You get to choose. But whatever kind of opera it is, it’s hard to compare with the heap of such operas that have come into the world to date in similar projects of the rock era. Holter has pulled off a remarkably deft twist within the chosen concept, right into the swing of rock and metal theater. The album is full throughout of huge waves of shifting moods that effectively keep the tension of the unfolding story teasingly high. Everything is in its place. In the same breath it delivers gloomy villainy that’ll make your teeth chatter, and on the other side, the eruptive spring of some superbly seductive melodic chorus hooks that wriggle infectiously into your ear on the very first listen. In that respect, Queen of the Dead simply had to come out as the lead single, because it delivers downright superb grabbiness in its chorus, and glued onto that in the second half is a real storm, ruled by the bold Holter with bravura hyper-virtuosity in the best traditions of Scandinavian-school soloing!
Let me keep it short! An exceptional record that holds the listener tight from the first second to the last. A rock and metal opera that, with all the demanding aspects of its conceptual starting points and the visionary genius of the exceptional Trond Holter, delivers an experience like nothing you’ve heard before. And Jorn Lande, the “devilish” one, of course holds up the other end! Word has it Holter is looking at options for bringing the music of »Swing of Death« to the stages of Norwegian theaters! Let time do its thing, and until then, let’s just let it pleasantly surprise us!
Line-up
Jorn Lande – vocals
Trond Holter – guitar
Bernt Jansen – bass
Per Morten Bergseth – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Lena Fløitmoen Børresen – vocal duets on “Under the Gun”, “Into the Dark”, “Save Me” and “River of Tears”
Production
Jorn Lande & Trond Holter
Tracklist
1. Hands of Your God
2. Walking on Water
3. Swing of Death
4. Masquerade Ball
5. Save Me
6. River of Tears
7. Queen of the Dead
8. Into the Dark
9. True Love Through Blood
10. Under the Gun
